Extremely rare 'adorable' Pocket Shark discovered in Gulf of Mexico

Thirty-six years ago, a pocket shark was discovered off the Peru coast, and just recently, another pocket shark, reported to be only the second one seen by humans, was discovered in a study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), researching the feeding habits of sperm whales.

span style="line-height: 15.8599996566772px;">MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - This young and rare pocket shark is only 5.5 inches long, while the first one that was discovered is about 17 inches long and a female adult. Its scientific name is 'Mollisquama."  

The pocket shark was swimming together with a group of fish caught by the NOAA in Louisiana back in 2010 for another study. Unfortunately, the fish was already dead when it was first examined before it was frozen, an hour after the scientists caught it. The fishes were frozen at that time for sperm whale feeding. For the past five years, these fishes have been slowly sorted out by the researchers.

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In a Zootaxa journal written by NOAA biologist Mark Grace, he detailed that the pocket shark found was no ordinary fish; he described it as a marine animal with "a remarkable pocket gland with its large slit-like external opening located just above the pectoral fin," which could also refer to as "an unhealed umbilical scar."

According to Grace and the other scientists, they have wondered where the parents of the pocket sharks are, as the first one that was discovered was found in a farther location. He also wonders as to how the pocket shark got to the gulf. They noticed that the belly "had ventral abdominal photopore agglomerations," which simply means that its underside had a grouping of light-emitting organs.

Grace added that the discovery of the pocket shark excited him as this means there are millions of sea creatures just waiting to be discovered.

There is little available source of information about the pocket shark. Based on a past research made on a similar species, the scientists are not sure as to what the pocket gland is for, but it is possible that it releases pheromones.

The pocket shark belongs to the Dalatiidae species, which includes the cookie cutter shark and the kitefin shark. Most of the Dalatiidae species are likely to chew out plugs of meat from larger sea creatures, while they often eat smaller sea animals whole. According to studies, the cookie-cutter sharks have a unique feeding behavior where they plug their teeth to get oval flesh plugs from squids, tunas, billfishes, and other marine mammals.

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