Papua New Guinea has accidentally spotted epaulette sharks that rarely walk on land
Forrest Galante, an American biologist, recently filmed an ecological program in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, this time mainly to investigate a new shark species that has been passed down by word of mouth among local fishermen. But when the new species was completely clueless, they captured a precious picture of an existing shark species.
In Papua New Guinea, they photographed the leopard epaulette shark walking directly from the water to the sand with its fins, and the 1-meter-long shark looked like a small sea lion that had just learned to walk, slowly and awkwardly moving its body.
The epaulette shark is not an endangered species, and it is also known that it can walk with its fins. But it is indeed the first time that the epaulette shark has taken the initiative to go out of the water.
Let's talk about this amazing shark.
Epaulette shark
The body of the epaulette shark is small and slender, the nose is short and rounded, and there is a nasal groove connecting the mouth and nostrils and small whiskers; Two spineless dorsal fins of similar size, located behind the body; The fin is located directly in front of the caudal fin; The pectoral and ventral fins are broad and rounded and paddle-shaped.
Most of them are cream or brown, and there are many small black dots on the body that are not uniformly spaced. There are two large black dots surrounded by white edges located above the pectoral fins that look like decorative epaulettes on military uniforms, which is where its name comes from. Interestingly, juvenile epaulette sharks do not have spots, and there are several dark brown saddle bands on their bodies, which slowly spread out into spots when they are adults.
The epaulette shark is so large that its diet can only be picked up by crustaceans, small fish and hairy worms, and the habits of these foods make the epaulette shark tend to choose to forage at low tide, usually most active at dusk and dawn. They lurk in reefs and tidal pools for food, using the shark's ancestral sense of electricity reception and smell to locate prey. When they find their prey, they will directly use their noses to open the sand, so that the prey is caught off guard.
The epaulette shark breeds in oval ways. Females give birth to pairs of oval shells under the top of the coral, which can produce up to 20 per year. These egg shells, which are not large enough to be palm-sized in adults, hatch after about 120 days.
Epaulette sharks are very docile, and humans can easily approach them without the risk of injury. Because of their clumsy way of moving and their preference for shallow water habitats, they can often be seen being caught and photographed by humans in areas such as beaches in the Western Pacific New Guinea and northern Australia.
It's really quite a different shark species, but its most amazing thing is yet to come.
Take bold steps
Epaulette sharks have muscles and bones that are not found in other sharks, and combined with rounded pectoral fins, they can lift their bodies and move these fins about 90 degrees, achieving the feat of using the fins as "feet" and performing walking exercises. This allows them to better fit the positioning of benthic beings and walk directly on the seabed in search of suitable prey.
The evolution of such a structure is obviously to seek a special ecological niche in the shark family that cannot be "rolled" to achieve the continuation of the population. No other shark can make such a big show in shallow waters.
To better fit the niche, the epaulette shark can even survive without any oxygen for up to an hour. It is indeed a strange flower in the shark world.