Sharks are at the top of the ocean's food chain, known for their sharp teeth, bloodthirsty ferocity, and underwater predators. The sharks we are most familiar with are either huge great white sharks, megalomous sharks, or weird-looking hanging sharks, long-snouted sawsharks, etc., but can you imagine that there are also petite parasitic species in sharks that cannot kill prey?
Pictured| Hammerhead Shark
Cigar Dharma shark, also known as cookie shark and cookie shark, is notorious for its "parasitic fish". Appeared as a "star contestant" in the American horror movie Shark Horror Night, creating a bloody massacre. In reality, the Dharma shark is also difficult to meet the opponent, it can bite the flesh from the body of the killer whale and the great white shark, the sea monster, the sharpness of the sharp teeth, even the US submarine can be bitten, is a kind of horrible "killer" from the deep sea...
Pictured| the carcass of a young humpback whale with a Dharma shark wound
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > small parasitic sharks</h1>
The Dharma shark is a small shark , measuring only 42 to 56 centimeters in size , that prefers to live in warm oceanic waters , usually breeding or preying near islands.
Pictured| cigar Dharma shark
The shark comes from the deep sea, and the known record is that the water is up to 3.7 km deep. They are accustomed to lying out of the sea during the day, lurking under the water of 1 to 3.5 kilometers during the day, and when night comes, they will migrate to deep waters of about 85 meters, and occasionally migrate to the surface, which means that the hunt is about to begin.
Picture | Cigar Dharma Shark (Part 2)
Dharma sharks, nicknamed cookie sharks, derive their names from the wounds they leave on their prey, deep and round, looking like small holes from a distance and like round biscuits up close.
Pictured| tuna bitten by a cigar Dharma shark
This peculiar wound shape is due to the way they teeth and bites, and interestingly, although their bodies are very small, they have densely packed, prominent large fangs, and their teeth are the largest ratio of body volume to body size of any shark.
Pictured | the teeth of a cigar Dharma shark
In addition, because dharma sharks have a luminous organ under their skin, they can emit a green glow at night, so they are also called luminous sharks. Among the shark families, the Dharma shark is the most luminous, and the green light on the body will continue even after being brought out of the water.
Pictured| Cigar Dharma Shark has a luminous organ in the abdomen that emits green light. Green fluorescence comes from organs in the skin called "light emitters."
Pictured| The shark was found at night in deep water near Hawaii and represents rare images of fish taken in the wild.
In addition to the apparent dark brown collar around the gills of the Dharma shark, the entire ventral surface of the body is covered with light spots, and these green lights will remain shiny for up to three hours after the death of the Dharma shark.
Pictured | the glowing belly of the cigar Dharma shark
In appearance, the Dharma shark is small and long, cigar-shaped, with a round nose and a pair of large green oval eyes growing on the head. When it is fully mature, females are stronger than males, with males having a maximum of only 42 cm, while females have a maximum of 56 cm.
Behind the eye are huge stomata that lead to its respiratory system. The Dharma shark has a short mouth but large and dense teeth, with 30 to 37 rows of teeth in the upper jaw and 25 to 31 rows of teeth in the lower jaw. The teeth of the upper jaw are relatively narrow, small and straight, with smooth fangs, and the teeth of the lower jaw are larger, wider, and serrated, forming saw-like edges.
Figure | unlike other sharks, the teeth of the cigar Dharma shark are connected to the bottom of the jaw
The pectoral fin of the Dharma shark is shorter, four-sided fin, with two dorsal fins placed near the end of the body, the second dorsal fin is a little larger than the first, and the largest of each fin of the body is the pelvic fin. But they do not have fins and a pronounced ventral notch, some with a wide caudal fin that is dark brown in color and lighter in color at the base.
All tropical and subtropical oceans are home to Dharma sharks, most commonly between 20° north and 20° south, as they prefer warm water temperatures of 18 to 26°C. They are active in the Atlantic Ocean in the Bahamas, southern Brazil, Sierra Leone, southern Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea and South Africa, in the Indian Ocean in Mauritius, New Guinea, Australia, Japan and New Zealand, and in the Pacific fiji, Hawaiian Islands, Galapagos And Guadalupe Islands.
Pictured| belly of a cigar Dharma shark at night
The reason why it is a parasitic shark is because its strategy is not to kill the other party directly, but to secretly launch an attack, causing damage to the prey but not fatal enough, and will quickly flee the scene after being found by the prey. But it's quite irritating, like a mosquito that sucks human blood, so many large animals in the ocean can't do anything about it.
| Dharma shark lives in tropical deep waters and has found bite marks in many deep-sea animals, such as the tuna found in the Bahamas
Dharma sharks are oviparous, with small pups incubated in the egg box of the mother, and females lay about 6 to 12 baby sharks after 12 to 22 months of gestation. Newborn baby sharks are fully developed and capable of preying at birth. Therefore, the Dharma shark is extremely viable, they are widely distributed and reproduce quickly, but they do not have much commercial value and are not easily affected by the fishing industry.
Pictured | cigar Dharma shark specimen
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > terrifying "predators" from the deep sea</h1>
Dharma sharks are quite ferocious in their predation habits, almost all medium and large animals in the ocean are their prey, in the cetaceans, feather gills, sharks, stingrays and bonefish have found the bite marks of the Dharma shark, tuna, sailfish, whales, dolphins and other large marine life are their prey targets. The wound left by the Dharma shark is rounded and pitted, 5 cm wide and 7 cm deep. They also prey on squid, and smaller squid are swallowed whole.
The figure | clear bite marks on the back
Weak or diseased marine life is easily bitten by Dharma sharks, while physically strong creatures are more tolerant. In the process of predation, the Dharma shark will first use the luminous light emitted by the luminous device on the abdomen to lure the prey, and then take advantage of its unprepared jagged sharp teeth to bite on the opponent's body, and then quickly 360 ° swirl the body to tear, and continue to rotate until a whole piece of flesh is completely torn down, so the wound that has been attacked by the Dharma fish is easy to identify and is a sleek hole.
Pictured| a whale bitten by a Dharma shark, scarred
Dharma sharks have a unique way of eating, because of their dazzling green light, the big fish often think that they have found a small fish to eat, thus prompting the big fish to get closer and be attracted to the belly of the Tamaki shark.
Pictured | mackerel bitten by a Dharma shark
Before the big fish bites the small fish, the Dharma shark will "preemptively", sucking with its mouth to deepen the attachment, and then firmly biting into the flesh with its sharp upper teeth. After leaving a highly recognizable wound, the Dharma shark escapes and enjoys a meal.
For most marine life, the "executioner" Dharma shark is definitely not a friendly neighbor. They wander the ocean in search of food, take a bite and move on, and none of them want to be the unlucky one who has been chosen.
Scientists observed and found that the petite Dharma shark had gone back to hunt down the great white shark, which was 10 times larger than itself— yes, the great white shark, known as one of the world's most fearsome predators, was no more than a lamb to be slaughtered in the eyes of the Dharma shark.
Pictured | marks after the great white shark was bitten, with fresh wounds on the left and wounds that have healed on the right
Divers have taken a photo of a great white shark being injured after being bitten near Guadalupe Island, west of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico, and this is the first time evidence that a Damo shark has been recorded in pursuit of a great white shark.
Giant sharks at the top of the food chain will still be attacked by something many times smaller than them, but they won't be hurt too badly, like being bitten by a mosquito. The scars left by dharma sharks are so unique that they get their name, and their "digging" techniques look as accurate as tools.
The killer whale | also cannot escape the fate of being bitten
How much courage does it take to attack a prey that is 10 times larger than you? Is this strategy wise? We don't know, but the Dharma Shark did, and its bold strategy rarely fails, but it is not foolproof. For example, researchers once found a Dharma shark in the stomach of a large bluefin tuna, which is a rare record of predators by Dharma sharks.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > relationship with humans</h1>
Dharma sharks prefer to live in offshore waters, so they are rarely encountered by humans and are not considered threatening due to their small size. However, there have also been attacks involving Dharma sharks: for example, a group of 30 cm long Dharma sharks attacked an underwater photographer diving on the high seas; similar encounters also came from survivors of shipwreck accidents, whose bodies were attacked by Dharma sharks during the night, leaving small but deep bites.
Pictured| calf bitten by a Dharma shark
In March 2009, on the Island of Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, a resident was bitten by a Dharma shark while swimming in the strait, and soon a swimmer was also attacked by a Dharma shark while crossing the strait, leaving a large laceration on the stomach. Three weeks later, a second Dharma shark attack took place at the same location.
On April 6, 2019, an athlete was bitten on the left shoulder by a Dharma shark during training while participating in a swimming challenge, and later a person who tried to complete the swim was bitten in the same area of the strait. On July 29, 2019, when a tourist tried to swim, he was bitten by a Dharma shark in the abdomen and left thigh, and someone used an electric shark deterrent, but was unable to stop it. Several records have shown that bodies salvaged from the water were also bitten by Dharma sharks.
Pictured| the person who was bitten
In the 1970s, several U.S. Navy submarines were forced to return to base, repairing the AN/BQR-19 sonar dome of the Chlorotin ferocious Dharma shark and not sparing even the U.S. Navy's submarines, leaving potholes in the submarines causing oil leaks, which seriously affected the submarine's policy navigation. At first, the U.S. Navy feared that it was an unknown new type of weapon, but later it was determined that the culprit was this small shark.
Pictured| sonar deflector cover attacked by a Dharma shark
In the 1980s, a total of about 30 U.S. Navy submarines were bitten by Dharma sharks, and the solution was mainly rubber sheathed wires to sounding probes, which were used to ensure the safety of submarines when floating in the navigation area, and also to coat submarines with fiberglass. Since the submarine, some marine equipment and telecommunications cables have also been damaged by this species.
Dharma sharks can also have a slight negative impact on the fishing industry, as they are too small to be valuable and are only caught as by-fish. With no obvious population threat and distribution around the world, the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) has assessed the Dharma shark as the "least noteworthy shark", i.e. not endangered at all.
Pictured| this elephant seal, mint, remains in intensive care at the Pacific Ocean Mammal Center after being bitten by a shark