Experts puzzled over photo of humanoid Australian shark
This guy looks happy to eat you.
An Australian fisherman recently reeled in a shark that left marine experts baffled — thanks to the big human-like smile on its face.
The deep-sea swimmer looks like a kid on picture day with a pearly-white, beaming grin and massive green eyes, according to images posted on Facebook by the fisherman who caught it, Trapman Bermagui.
Some were even quick to compare the mystery marine creature to one of the stars of a famous underwater flick.
“Looks like Chum off Finding Nemo,” wrote Facebook user Alexis Creary, referring to one of the shark characters from the 2003 Disney cartoon.
Other commenters joked that the beast looked like a teen who had recently gotten their braces taken off.
“Looks really happy he’s just had his braces off so is accentuating the gums and teeth,” one user commented.
The unusual shark, which was found 2,130 feet off the coast of Australia, has oceanologists scratching their heads about what species it is.
While Bermagui’s Facebook post claimed it was a cookie cutter shark, others disagreed.
Brit Finucci, a scientist at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said that she thinks that Bermagui nailed down the family of shark as a gulper shark, but she could not narrow down the species.
However, other shark experts were less convinced and provided their own thoughts on the deep sea swimmer.
Dean Grubbs, a marine biologist at Florida State University, said that the shark was likely a roughskin dogfish — a type of sleeper shark — rather than a gulper shark.
Director of the Shark Lab at California State University Christopher Lowe told Newsweek that he had another species in mind: “Looks to me like a deepwater kitefin shark (Dalatias licha), which are known in the waters off Australia,” he said.
Lowe added that he couldn’t make a final evaluation without seeing the entire shark.
However, Lowe also raised the possibility that Bermagui’s shark belongs to a species that scientists have never studied.
“We discover new species of deepwater shark all the time and many look very similar to each other,” he said.
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