GoM ‘newbie shark’ is a new species

NEW ORLEANS - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ichthyologist Mark Grace and collaborators have identified a new species of the pocket shark found in the Gulf of Mexico. Its mysterious pockets, for which it is named, squirt little glowing clouds into the ocean. Researchers from around the Gulf Coast and New York have named the species the American pocket shark, or Mollisquama (mah-lihs-KWAH-muh) mississippiensis (MISS-ih-sip-ee-EHN-sis). It's only the third of more than 500 known shark species that may squirt luminous liquid, according to R. Dean Grubbs, a Florida State University scientist who was not involved in the research. Like the only other pocket shark known to science - a 16-inch adult female found in the Pacific Ocean off Peru and called Mollisquama parini - this new discovery is a 5.6-inch newborn male fished out of the Gulf and has a pouch next to each front fin. Those muscular glands are lined with pigment-covered fluorescent projections that indicate they squirt luminous liquid, NOAA’s Grace and collaborators wrote in the journal "Zootaxa." The differences between the two specimens include a possible pressure-sensitive organ in the new species that could be used to detect motion hundreds of feet away, and differences in teeth. Grace, based in Pascagoula, Miss., said the baby shark was among specimens collected during a 2010 survey about what GoM sperm whales eat by trawling at a depth where tagged whales were feeding. He spent three years identifying those collected specimens. The “newbie shark” was showing an umbilical scar, and was in the last bag he opened to study. "I've been in science about 40 years ... I can usually make a pretty good guess" about a marine animal's identity, he said. "I couldn't with this one." (Source: The AP 07/19/19)