Here's something new: As elite, competitive swimmers are looking more to deep-ocean swims to test their mettle, they're encountering the weird cookiecutter shark. The first attack on a human by a cookiecutter was recorded in March 2009, when a cookiecutter shark, aka Isistius
brasiliensis, attacked a swimmer crossing the Alenuihaha Channel from Hawaii to Maui in the evening. No worries–about getting killed anyway. This shark runs about 2 feet in length. But what a weirdo: Its teeth are connected at the bottom jaw. The fish pushes its teeth into its victim's flesh and then gives a twist. It scoops out a ball of flesh and leaves a crater-type wound. Worse, their teeth are really big and out of proportion to their overall body length. As one scientist quoted at Underwater Times says, if you get bitten, you'll lose a chunk of you and need plastic surgery, too. These sharks are located in tropical waters, and they cause most of their trouble at night. Their bit marks are so distinctive that when biologists find them on large ocean animals, like whales, it helps them determine where that animal has migrated from.
A scientist at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium, John O'Sullivan, is also quoted by Underwater Times saying that these sharks are so aggressive that "People say, 'Thank God these things don't get big.' " Click here to read more about this critter.
(via Underwater Times)
–Mary Pinkowish
