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A young shark slides to the bottom of the ocean, hits the sandy ground with its head and disappears in a cloud of dust. Pause. A small fish passes. Then… BREAK! The fish don’t know what hit them.
This is the scene in a stunning new video of a rare juvenile angel shark, first recorded off the coast of Wales. As well as showing the ambush skills of the elusive ninja-like animal, the footage has raised hopes that the critically endangered sharks still breed in British waters, according to researchers who have it. filmed.
Marine biologist Jake Davies spent about 15 minutes recording the young shark during a recent dive. The shark, measuring around one foot in length, is the first angel shark ever to be filmed in Wales, Davies said in an email. Fortunately, the elusive predator wasn’t shy in front of the camera; the shark displayed a wide range of swimming and hunting behaviors as Davies followed it like a personal paparazzi.
“It was amazing watching him and filming him swimming, burrowing in the sand, and then using his camouflage to ambush his prey,” said Davies, project coordinator with the group. conservation center Angel Shark Project: Wales. “These images are way beyond what we thought would be possible to capture in Wales.”
Angel sharks, which belong to the genus Squatine, have flat bodies that narrow into wing-shaped fins on either side, similar to rays. They are ambush predators that lurk at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes burrowing in the sand for camouflage, according to Britannica. When prey swims nearby – usually small crustaceans and bottom-feeding fish, such as gobies – sharks emerge and attack with ninja precision.
While this sneaky seabed lifestyle gives sharks a predatory advantage, it also makes them very susceptible to trawl nets. For this reason, populations of all species of angel sharks have been declining over the past 50 years, leaving them critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They live in relatively small numbers throughout the northeastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, from Norway to Morocco.
Seeing sharks breeding near Wales offers a small ray of hope for the genus, Davies and colleagues said, and the dives could reveal valuable new information about the range and ecology of angel sharks .
Originally posted on Live Science.
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