Shark species older than dinosaurs caught on film in the Gulf of Mexico
A group of researchers managed to capture on video the oldest shark species in the Gulf of Mexico; it is older than the dinosaurs.
The waters of the Gulf of Mexico have given us some of the greatest treasures in terms of new species and extraordinary endemic animals. This time, the discovery of a shark that is the same age as the dinosaurs surprised a group of scientists. The specimen of the combshark (Hexanchus griseus) was captured on video by a group of OceanX researchers, a scientific mission that aims to explore oceans and return them to the world, more than a thousand meters deep, near Cape Eleuthera, in the Bahamas.
This species precedes most dinosaurs, which means that it is the oldest in the lineage of sharks, so it is not easy to find and much less to capture in images. If they still prowl around, it's because they survived the massive extinction of the Permian-Triassic. The comet sharks can measure up to 4.8 meters in length and weigh 590 kilos. They have robust bodies and wide, flat heads.
Expedition leader Gavin Naylor told international media that meeting the animal was like "seeing a T.Rex in the water.
This lineage of sharks has been on Earth a hundred times longer than Homo erectus, "and those sharks haven't changed that much. According to the Florida Museum, the expedition's sponsor, the shark is a female with six gills measuring more than 5 meters. This species is the dominant predator of the deep-sea ecosystem. This is the first time someone has managed to put a satellite tag on one of these "elusive" sharks, something that had been done before but only out of the water, on the surface.
