For the first time in the world, research groups such as Professor Emeritus Kazuhiro Nakaya of Hokkaido University have revealed the predatory behavior of goblin sharks, which live in the deep sea and whose ecology was unknown even more than a century after their discovery.The results of this research, in collaboration with the Okinawa Churashima Foundation, Shimonoseki City Shimonoseki Aquarium, and the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), were published in the online academic journal "Scientific Reports" of the Nature Publishing Group.
Goblin shark is a deep-sea shark discovered in Japan in 1898.In addition to Tokyo Bay, Suruga Bay, and Sagami Bay, it has been reported to inhabit the deep seas around the world.Larger ones are 5 or 6 meters long, and are also called "devil sharks" because of their pale pink body and bare teeth. It was a mystery how it was used at times.
Therefore, with the cooperation of NHK, the image of the world's first predation scene that the company succeeded in shooting in Tokyo Bay in 2008 and 2011 was examined as an exploded photograph in units of 3 to 13 milliseconds. It was found that (120) the jaw was wide open to nearly 0.3 degrees, and (3.14) the entire jaw was projected forward and closed in just about 9 seconds, and predation was swift.The behavior of protruding the jaw is widely seen in sharks, but the speed of the goblin shark is XNUMX meters per second, which is the fastest in fish, and the length of the jaw protruding is about XNUMX% of the body length, which is significantly larger than other sharks. ..Professor Nakatani et al. Named this feeding method "slingshot feeding".
The research team says that deep-sea goblin sharks may have acquired this peculiar jaw movement to ensure prey catching in the deep sea, where there are few prey organisms due to their slow swimming speed.
The results of this research are new ichthyological discoveries that show how shallow-sea sharks have adapted and evolved into the deep sea, and will be used to consider the mechanism of deep-sea adaptation of fish in the future. It is said to be an index.
