New Delhi: We all love oceans but it is quite uncommon to come across prehistoric creatures swimming across the oceans, on the other hand, it was a lucky day for the Portuguese Scientists who caught a shark aboard belonging to the age of dinosaurs from the Algarve cast.
The scientists who were working on a European Union Project to “minimise unwanted catches in commercial fishing” captured the rare frilled shark on board in a trawler.
The scientists from the country’s Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere believes the shark to be the ‘living fossil’ of the dinosaurs era as its remains date back to 80 million years- the Cretaceous Period when the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops walked on earth.
The rare species caught in deep waters of the depth of 700 meters (2,300ft) off the resort of Portimao measures 1.5 metres (5ft) in length and is a male species.
According to the scientists, this rare shark is long, slime, snake-like and very “little known
in terms of its biology or environment”, since the creature lives in deep waters in the Atlantic and off the coasts of Australia, New Zealand and Japan, is also unevolved due to lack of nutrients in the deepwater environment.
The scientists named this creature as ‘Chlamydoselachus anguineus’ for its gills that are of the frilled arrangement of 300 teeth, lined neatly in 25 rows.
This creature lies in depths of 390 and 4,200 feet below the surface levels which is also one of the main reasons for not being discovered before the 19th century.
Deep water ‘living fossil’ shark discovered
