And for those who like their sharks flat.....

Nov 10, 2016

134

And for those who like their sharks flat.....                
 
I also got a few specimens of skates. This is a mature male (with huge claspers) of Amblyraja radiata- possibly the commonest skate in the cool waters of the North Atlantic. We have skeletonise this one for study, but I have fixed another at the NHM for CT scanning to see if there are different features available. Apparently subarctic examples of this skate look rather different, so this may help see if there are 2 species present. By theway, both of the large males of this species have their tails missing with the wound healed. Something down there has a diet of skate tails!

MairaSmith, Cindy, and 5 others like this.

3 comments

Join the conversation!Sign In

Moya Meredith Smith

Glad you told me that the wound had healed I thought maybe it had swallowed his own tail!

Nov 10, 20160

Charlie UnderwoodResearcher

Like snakes in ancient bestiaries

Nov 10, 20160

Cindy WuBacker

Interesting observation that they have their tails missing and wound healed... any guess as to who is trying to eat their tails?

Nov 10, 20160

Charlie UnderwoodResearcher

No idea. Do any male skates fight for mates like this? Both with tails missing are mature males, the 2 mature males are undamaged. There are also a range of small squaliform sharks there with cutting teeth. Maybe a hit and run attack by an Etmopterus?

Nov 10, 20160

Matt KolmannBacker

I wonder if that's why the have an electric organ in their tails? as a decoy?

Nov 10, 20160

Charlie UnderwoodResearcher

I have not noticed it; the fleshy electro related tissue seems to be around the head and presumably only sensory in skates. But if no one has looked....

Nov 10, 20160

About This Project

Tooth plates in chimaeras and their relationship to teeth in sharks

Birkbeck College, London and Natural History Museum, London

The chimaeras (ghost sharks and spookfish) are a group of often deep sea fishes related to the sharks and rays. Unlike sharks, chimaeras have large, continuously growing tooth plates. These tooth plates have a very different structure to the teeth of sharks, or indeed any other fish. Within the teeth are sheets, rods and 'beads' of hard material that forms the cutting and biting surfaces. We shall be investigating the structure and development of these teeth and relating it to teeth of sharks.