Goblin shark

Koboldhai ( Mitsukurina owstoni )

The Koboldhai ( Mitsukurina owstoni ) is a rare, little-known deep-sea sharks, whose distribution is known only punctiform. He is the only extant species of Mitsukurinidae family and belongs to the order Makrelenhaiartigen ( Lamniformes ). The species was described in 1898 by the American biologist David Starr Jordan and named in honor of the Japanese zoologists Kakichi Mitsukuri who brought the prisoners in Japanese Sagami Bay holotype to Jordan.

Features

Goblin sharks are up to 3.85 meters long, a captive in about 1,000 meters depth in the northern Gulf of Mexico specimen was even more than six feet long. Most known specimens had a length of about two meters. They carry on the mouth of a long, paddle -shaped rostrum, which is why they are also called Nasenhai. Her body is soft, very small eyes without nictitating membrane. The mouth of the Koboldhais is very far vorstreckbar ( protaktil ), the teeth are long and narrow. The dorsal fins are small and rounded, the caudal fin is long with an underdeveloped lower lobe. The tail fins stalk has no pits or depressions. Goblin sharks have 122-125 vertebrae. Like all Makrelenhaiartigen is the Koboldhai ovoviviparous.

Dissemination

The Koboldhai lives on the outer shelf areas on the continental slopes and seamounts at depths 100-1300 m, usually 270-960 meters. He has been in far-flung, isolated regions in the western ( Gulf of Mexico coast of Guiana ) and eastern Atlantic ( France and South Africa), in the southwest Indian Ocean (South Africa), in the western Pacific (Japan, Australia, New Zealand) and eastern Pacific (California ), detected at depths 30-1350 m.

Phylogeny

Fossils of Mitsukurina date back to the Eocene. In addition, the extinct Koboldhaigattungen Anomotodon are ( Lower Cretaceous to Eocene ) and Scapanorhynchus been ( Lower to Upper Cretaceous ) described. Some scholars are of the view that Mitsukurina and Scapanorhynchus are congeneric. In this case, the name would have priority Scapanorhynchus. Scapanorhynchus had pointed breast and dorsal fins and an anal fin much longer than Mitsukurina.