Yesterday marked only the second time a prickly shark has been kept in captivity and the first time one was exhibited. It was held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for only a few hours before being released because it wasn't doing well in the tank. My son will want to hear about all of this when he gets home from school today.
The four-foot long prickly shark has thorny skin and an extra dorsal fin at the base of its tail. It's found mostly in submarine canyons and its numbers are being depleted due to overfishing. It can be found at a depths of 3,000 feet.
This year, my son became fascinated with the freakish creatures that live at those depths and so have I, after reading his deep sea books with him. Because of Nate, I know about such obscure species as the "hagfish,'' which lives off dead animals that fall to the ocean floor and the "viperfish'' which dwells 5,000 feet down and has fangs so big they can't fit inside its mouth.
That far down, there are fantastic volcanoes called "hydrothermal vents'' and fish that glow to provide light in the darkness, where sunlight never penetrates.
Learning about stuff like that is one of the things I love best about being a mom--all the strange bits of knowledge and trivia you collect just because your children are curious about something.
Most of the deep sea creatures that Nate and I love to read about were only discovered in the 1970s, when I was a child, so I missed the opportunity to learn about them then. Scientests estimate that there are thousands more that we have yet to discover.
The prickly shark, the viper fish, and all the other weird and wonderful animals that captivate my kids, are reminders that the world is still full of secrets waiting to be revealed and that strange and exotic things can be found even in the most familiar places.
Source : http://www.nj.com/parenting/carrie_stetler/index.ssf/2009/06/prickly_shark_something_to_tel.html
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