Megamouth Shark - The Rise and Fall of a Newcomer
Created | Updated May 5, 2005
Every once in a while nature seems to get bored with the way humans feel about things, and throws out something totally new and exciting for everyone to scramble around saying things starting with 'What the...' and 'Why didn't we know about this sooner...'.
Blame the white mice if you have to, but it's been happening for quite some time. In 1938, a fishing vessel dragged up a fish amazing not only for its ugliness, but also for the 'fact' that it had been extinct for some 70 million years. Thus man entered the Coelacanth age, and a trememdous flurry of activity was undertaken to study the fish and find out where it had been all this time.
Nevermind that if you start a massive hunting program for something possibly quite rare, you stand a chance of extincting it once again. But luckily, the Coelacanth lives on.
Another example is some new woodpecker of some sort, discoved in the Spring of 2005. Actually, some old woodpecker, that we thought was disappeared forever. We can count and map the path of every star in the sky, but can't keep track of a bird. The mice must still be laughing at that one.
But then, every once in a very long while, we find something new. Totally new. Like it came from another dimension. Never seen or even imagined before. This was the case in the fall of 1976, which led scientists to discover a brand new species of aquatic tapeworm, and a new parasitic copepod. It's probably also noteworthy to say that the 14 foot shark they were found on, had also never been seen before.
ALOHA!
November in Hawaii is really no different from any other month in Hawaii. So to the crew of the US Navy research vessel AFB-14, this was just another day, and just another job. They were floating about 26 miles (42 KM) Northeast of Kakunu point, off the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii. The water in this area is quite deep, about 15000 feet (4600 M), so they had deployed a sea anchor to maintain station.
A sea anchor is basically just like a parachute. It is a shroud dropped into the water, and catches in the water to create drag, and keep a boat from drifting. They are usually painted orange and white, which in deep water may make it resemble a swimming cloud of plankton.
November 15 found the men onboard the small craft completing what they had been sent to do, and returning home. They began to hoist in the sea anchor, but found it much more resistant than usual. It was floating underwater around 540 feet (165 M), so may have been caught in an ocean current. But the men kept pulling, and what happened next turned just another fine Navy day into one of the most amazing discoveries of all time. As the anchor slowly rose into view, it became obvious that there was something in it. Something big. The men brought it to the surface and realized it was a very large fish, which had apparently swallowed most of the sea anchor and died. None of the men on board had ever seen anything like this fish, so they hauled it on board, and took it home.
