These Rare Sharks Are Some Of The Weirdest Animals On Earth

When we think of sharks, the picture we pull up is often that of the tremendous great white. But these big sharks aren't the only kinds out there. Sharks come in all shapes and sizes, some of them with crazy skills, special spines, and knifelike snouts.

To get a better idea of how many sharks there are out there, and learn more about the different species, researcher Paul Clerkin, a graduate student at California's Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, set out on a two-month fishing expedition.

"I tell people I have a ton of sharks, and they keep thinking I’m joking," Clerkin said in an interview with OurAmazingPlanet. "It was an actual ton. I brought back 350 sharks."

Some of them are completely new species that hadn't been discovered before.

He collected the sharks that the fishermen caught accidentally — called "bycatch"— while they were trawling the seafloor.

"As the fishermen trawl for their targeted catch, many other species are often caught unintentionally and result in incidental mortalities. The fishing vessel did not change its normal fishing practices to target the sharks, and they actually avoid sharks because most species have low commercial value and can damage the nets," Clerkin told us in an email. Clerkin "only collected sharks that were dead when they came out of the net, and any shark that was even slightly alive was immediately returned to the ocean without further risk to its health."

Here, he describes some of the weird sharks he found in his own words.

This is a new species of catshark. As you can see from the ruler in the picture the shark only gets a little over a foot long before they fully mature. Although they are small they might be important predators on the sea mounts (underwater mountains) they inhabit. This chubby little shark’s appearance greatly contrasts with the classic vision of the Great White shark.

In this picture I am working on deck with a false catshark. This species isn’t new but it is considered to be rare. I was extremely excited the first time we found one. As we caught more false catsharks over the trip I started to suspect these sharks are not as rare as previously thought. I think they just live in remote locations relatively unexplored by science. Although it is not a new species I gathered data and information on this shark that was previously unknown and will increase our understanding of this strange animal.

This picture was taken on the ship. It is a Gulper shark.

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