Rare megamouth shark caught off Japan

FILE: Fishermen off the coast of japan pulled in a rare megamouth shark, similar to the one pictured, marking only the 58th time one was encountered by humans, Japanese news outlets reported.Reuters

Fishermen off the coast of Japan hauled in a rare megamouth shark recently, marking the 58th time in history one of its kind were seen or caught by man, Japanese news outlets reported.

The Japan Daily Press reported Thursday that scientists performed an autopsy on the 1,500-pound female shark in front of onlookers at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka City. The shark was reportedly caught from a depth of about 2,600 feet. It's unclear precisely when it was nabbed, according to the report.

The first megamouth was discovered in Hawaii in 1976, prompting scientists to create an entirely new family and genus of sharks. The megamouths are docile filter-feeders with wide, blubbery mouths.

RARE GOBLIN SHARK CAUGHT OFF KEY WEST

Others megamouths — considered one of the rarest fish in the world — have been encountered in California, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, Senegal, South Africa, Mexico and Australia. It's known to inhabit the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"As with the two other filter-feeding sharks, the basking and whale sharks, this species is wide-ranging," according to a profile of the animal on the museum's website. "However, the megamouth is considered to be less active and a poorer swimmer than the basking or whale sharks."

The megamouth primarily feeds on large quantities of krill and its maximum size is at least 17 feet long. The sperm whale is its only known predator, researchers say.

In 2009, fishermen in the Philippines accidentally caught and later ate a megamouth shark. The 1,100-pound, 13-foot megamouth died while struggling in the fishermen's net off Burias island in the central Philippines. It was taken to nearby Donsol in Sorsogon province, where it was butchered and eaten.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Scientists make new find in photos of freakish shark

A giant deep-sea isopod or Bathynomus giganteus.Reuters

A rare goblin shark was caught last month off the coast of Key West, Fla., in what biologists are calling “an important scientific discovery,”Carl Moore/courtesy of NOAA

Researchers studying photos of a rare goblin shark hauled up in the Gulf of Mexico last month say they've spotted something just as exciting—and just as weird-looking—in the shrimpers' catch.

Mixed in with the shrimp are unusually large numbers of giant isopods, a deep-sea creature that resembles a cat-sized woodlouse, reports the Houston Chronicle, which has a photo gallery of the catch.

Scientists believe their presence, along with that of the goblin shark, indicates that the trawler passed over a "whalefall"—a decaying whale on the ocean floor, perhaps as much as a mile below the surface.

Entire ecosystems can spring up around the dead whales, living off the carcass for decades. "While I think (the) goblin shark is cool and all, look at all those freakin' giant isopods!" tweeted marine biologist Andrew Thaler, who plans to seek funding to send a submersible to the site.

If his team makes it there, they may encounter the same goblin shark: The captain who caught it says he returned the strangest creature he's encountered in his 50 years of shrimping to the Gulf after taking photos.

"Anything that's alive we try to put back in the ocean," he tells CNN. (More on the freakish shark here.)

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Tag! Spyware Tracks Mysterious Basking Shark (LiveScience.com)

Basking sharks, one of the largest fish on Earth, are notoriously hard to find, despite their colossal size and unmistakable silhouette. Now, scientists working in California have called on satellite technology to help them track these mysterious and scarce sharks.

In early June, researchers with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Fisheries Service affixed a tracking tag to a basking shark swimming about 5 miles (8 kilometers) off the San Diego coast. Despite the fact that satellite tags are now widely used to study marine animals, it is only the third time a basking shark has been tagged in the entire Pacific Ocean.

"Reasonable numbers haven't been seen off California since the late '80s and early '90s," said NOAA's Heidi Dewar, in an email. "So until recently it would have been hard to even get access to them to tag."

In fact, Dewar said, the species had become so elusive in the eastern Pacific that it fell off scientists' radar as part of the local fauna. Worldwide, very little is known about the life cycle of the giant fish, which can grow up to 45 feet (13 meters) long, second only to whale sharks in sheer size.

"They seem to nearly disappear for decades at a time and we have no idea where they might be going," Dewar told OurAmazingPlanet. "Japan, Russia, Ecuador? We also don't have any idea where the nursery for little basking sharks is."

Tagging trials

Basking sharks live in temperate, coastal waters around the world. In decades past, they were targeted for their valuable fins and liver oil. Their numbers plummeted and continue to decline, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

NOAA scientists John Hyde and Owyn Snodgrass tagged the first Pacific basking shark just about a year ago, in June 2010. Almost a year later, in May 2011, a second, 20-foot (6 m) fish was tagged, but it prematurely shed its tracker, which was found on a beach by a surfer and sent back to the lab.

"We got very lucky to recover the tag so quickly," Dewar said, adding that although the first tagged shark provided valuable information via satellite — data such as water temperature, depth and location — scientists get even more data on the fish's habits when the tags are returned.

The tracking devices are attached just below the dorsal fin, by means of a long, spear-like pole. Tagging a fish is no easy feat, yet one made slightly easier by basking sharks' habit of swimming slowly along the ocean surface, their cavernous mouths agape to catch swarms of krill and other tiny crustaceans.

Gentle giants

Despite their rather alarming appearance, Dewar said humans have nothing to fear from basking sharks.

"They are gentle giants," she said. "They aren't bothered by people in the water with them and have itty-bitty teeth."

There is hope that their sudden reappearance off Southern California will offer researchers a chance to finally solve some of the mysteries that surround the world's second-largest fish.

"The main misconception on our coast is that they don't occur here," Dewar said. "Hopefully, we will see more of them, and people will come to see them as a friendly neighbor."

Reach Andrea Mustain at @AndreaMustain.

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