The pocket shark looks like a tiny whale

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A pocket shark has been discovered by scientists in the most unusual way.

And the rarest of sharks with only one specimen ever seen before just look like a tiny whale! So cute!

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Really a tiny whale! Photo: FishWatch

 

A male pocket shark measuring 5.5 inches long was collected during a 2010 midwater trawl survey 190 miles south of Louisiana by NOAA/NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center while studying prey of sperm whales.

The dead specimen was collected with other sea creatures, bagged up and stored in a giant freezer at NOAA’s lab in Pascagoula, Mississippi, until they could be identified.

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Pocket shark was collected in 2010 but not discovered in the lab until three years ago. Photo: FishWatch

 

It took NOAA researchers three years before coming across the pocket shark.

The first pocket shark was found 36 years ago on the Naska Submarine Ridge in 1,083 feet of water in the southeast Pacific Ocean off Peru. The female specimen is 17 inches long and is currently housed in a Russian museum.

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Strange and tiny miracle. Photo: FishWatch

 

A kind of small miracle in this brutal world!

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