Rare Megamouth Shark Captured Off Japan
Posted on May 9, 2014
Rare megamouth shark captured off Japan: http://t.co/SQsjHwJb65 'Alien' was hauled in from a depth of 2,600 feet pic.twitter.com/Mv0uLyinkP
— Yahoo (@Yahoo) May 8, 2014A rare megamouth shark was captured off Japan. The large shark got caught in a fishing trap. The shark was put on display at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka City. The Huffington Post reports that the shark was then opened during a public necropsy. Nippon TV reports that the shark is a female. It is 4 meters (13 feet) long and weighs 677 kilograms (1492 pounds). Nippon TV also says, "This is only the 58th Megamouth ever to have been caught or sighted by man."
The first megamouth was captured in 1976. Here is a video about the deep sea shark species from Discovery for Shark Week 2013. Talk a look:
An extinct species of megamouth shark was identified from fossilized teeth last year.