Shark Bites Whale

Phys.Org mentions an interesting article published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. The article concerns a fragment of a whale rib, dating to the Pliocene, that shows evidence of a shark bite. In this case the rib also displays evidence of having survived the attack. From Phys.Org: Continue reading

Saturday Great White Shark Blogging

Just because…

Great white Posted by Hello

Megalodon and The Great White Shark: Transitional Fossil Found

But, it doesn’t link Great Whites and Megalodon. Longtime readers may remember this three part series on the subject. An interesting new fossil has been discovered that sheds some more light on the subject.

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I Thought He Only Studied Lancelets!

That is the name of his blog anyway. Apparently, though, Martin also studies fossils. National Geographic has the story – and this is the clever part – apparently he didn’t even have to go out into the field:

But Brazeau suspected that in the right circumstances, some bones could withstand time.
So he took a closer look at the well-preserved Ptomacanthus specimen that had been in the literature for 30 years. “Sure enough,” he said, “the specimen had its braincase preserved.”

I’m getting ahead of myself, though, so let me back up.

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Reverse Evolution in Sticklebacks?

A number of people have emailed me a link to this story about “reverse evolution” in sticklebacks residing in Lake Washington. The basic story is that as Lake Washington was cleaned of its pollution sticklebacks went from being low plated to being completely plated. Partially, this was a response to heavier predation caused by increased clarity of the water.

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Rare Frilled Shark Video

MSNBC has video of a female frilled shark. From MSNBC News:

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New Species of Hammerhead Shark Discovered

According to BBC News and Science a new species of hammerhead shark has been discovered of the coast of South Carolina. The new species is related to the scalloped hammerhead pictured below.
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14 Foot Long Hammerhead Shark Murdered

Long time readers of my blog know I have certain idiosyncratic quirks when it comes to sharks. However, this is just wrong!
Apparently, some folks in Florida offed a 14 foot Hammerhead – which may a record for size. Feh, Hammerheads belong in the ocean, not on the end of a hook!
Hammerhead.jpg
Hammerheads (the one pictured above is not the murder victim) are kind of cool…

Octopus Killing a Shark

Martin Brazeau at The Lancelet has the video. Apparently, the octopus was moved into a shark tank and developed a regular habit of killing 3-4 foot sharks…

Megalodon and the Great White Sharks: Conclusion

This is the final post in the series…
I had originally planned the first post in this series as a companion piece to the Cheetah post for the Friday Ark. One of the points I wanted to address was the issue of great whites preying on juvenile Megalodon. Since cheetahs have extremely high infant mortality I thought the two would complement each other nicely. Unfortunately, I got extraordinarily busy and didn’t have time to do it then.

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