The goblin shark is a rare species of deep-sea shark. It is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage some 125 million years old. Small numbers of goblin sharks are unintentionally caught by deepwater fisheries. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as Least Concern, despite its rarity.
About Goblin shark in brief
The goblin shark is a rare species of deep-sea shark. It is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage some 125 million years old. This pink-skinned animal has a distinctive profile with an elongated, flat snout, and highly protrusible jaws containing prominent nail-like teeth. Goblin sharks are benthopelagic creatures that inhabit upper continental slopes, submarine canyons, and seamounts throughout the world at depths greater than 100 m. Small numbers of goblin sharks are unintentionally caught by deepwater fisheries. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as Least Concern, despite its rarity, citing its wide distribution and low incidence of capture. Its long snout is covered with ampullae of Lorenzini that enable it to sense minute electric fields produced by nearby prey, which it can snatch up by rapidly extending its jaws. The eyes are small and protective nictitating membranes; behind the eyes are spiracles. The mouth is parabolic in shape and can be extended almost to the end of the snout. It has 35–53 upper rows of teeth in the main part of the jaws, and 31–62 lower rows in the lower part. The main teeth are particularly long and narrow, particularly in the front of the mouth, with narrow, narrow, and narrow rows of narrow teeth. The common name \”goblin shark\” is a translation of its old Japanese name tenguzame, a tengu being a Japanese mythical creature often depicted with a long nose and red face.
Another name for this species is elfin shark. The shark is usually between 3 and 4 m long when mature, though it can grow considerably larger such as one captured in 2000 that is thought to have measured 6 m. It has a distinctively long and flatSnout, resembling a blade with the length of thesnout decreasing with age with the age of the goblin shark. Some researchers believe that these sharks could also dive to depths of up to 1,300 m, for short periods of time. It first appears in the fossil record during the period Middle Eocene ; extinct species include M. lineata and M. maslinensis. As the last member of an ancient lineage, it may also be one of several several species that retains some of its original traits, such as a primitive snout and one that could also be also be called a “primitive shark” The shark has been described as a “living fossil” and has been classified as a basal member of the order Lamniformes, known as mackerel sharks. Phylogenetic studies based on morphology have classified the goblin sharks as the most basal members of the Order Lamnistices. The species was first described by David Starr Jordan in an 1898 issue of Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. He based his account on an immature male 107 cm long caught in Sagami Bay near Yokohama, Japan.
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This page is based on the article Goblin shark published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
