Scientists find first ever hybrid sharks

[werepossum]

Scientists say these sharks get up to thirty percent better mileage than regular sharks, depending on the mix of surf zone and open water swimming.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...a/2012/01/03/gIQAPy00YP_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Scientists have identified the first-ever hybrid shark off the coast of Australia, a discovery that suggests some shark species may respond to changing ocean conditions by interbreeding with one another.

A team of 10 Australian researchers identified multiple generations of sharks that arose from mating between the common blacktip shark (Carcharhinus limbatus) and the Australian blacktip (Carcharhinus tilstoni), which is smaller and lives in warmer waters than its global counterpart.

“To find a wild hybrid animal is unusual,” the scientists wrote in the journal Conservation Genetics. “To find 57 hybrids along 2,000 km [1,240 miles] of coastline is unprecedented.”

Oddly enough, although one suspected cause for the interbreeding is (as always) climate change, the hybrid blacktips range into cooler water than the Australian blacktips.

Anyway, it ain't sharks with lasers but I found it interesting.

 

[ElFenix]

i was expecting a lasers reference and came away satisfied.

 

[Craig234]

I don't believe it. Sharks are a pure DPS class.

 

[woolfe9999]

I don't believe it. Sharks are a pure DPS class.

Took me a couple seconds to get this joke, but yeah, that was pretty clever and funny.

 

[blankslate]

Hopefully no one's been increasing the size of their brains...

 

[Jaskalas]

Here's some background on how the media has misused the story.

Australian hybrid fish story – Media jumps the shark - January 4, 2012
Pretty much everyone who has seen this today shakes their head and wonders. I’m wondering too. First, the story which is being serially regurgitated without any thought in media outlets world wide:

Picture worth a thousand words:

 

[zsdersw]

The biodiversity and adaptability we are surrounded by on this planet is a constant source of amazement.

It's worth noting, though, that we're the only species that doesn't really adapt. We alter the environment more than we allow the environment to alter us. We create bubbles of temperate/dry conditions everywhere we reside or spend any significant time. We make the environment in a given area able to grow sufficient quantities of food or provide the levels of other resources we need, rather than migrate to where food and other resources are naturally plentiful.

I'm not being critical, just pointing out the contrast.

 

[cave_dweller]

Old story which is bull****** in reality. Jaskalas link above tells the real story.

Summary

Sharks are prone to human-induced impacts, including fishing, habitat destruction and pollution. Therefore, effective conservation and management requires knowledge of species distributions. Despite the size and notoriety of sharks, distributions of some species remain uncertain due to limited opportunities for observation or difficulties with species identification.

One of the most difficult groups of sharks to identify correctly is the ‘blacktip sharks’. This group of whaler sharks are harvested in substantial numbers along the Australian east coast, including NSW, yet little is known of their distribution and resultant potential portion of the commercial shark catch.

The NSW Shark Meshing Program (SMP) research has collected genetic samples from most sharks caught for many years. Analysis of these samples to determine proportions of each species caught in the shark nets yielded the surprising discovery that the tropical Australian blacktip shark (Carcharhinus tilstoni) was regularly represented. Approximately one-third of the ‘blacktip sharks’ previously assigned to the common blacktip (C. limbatus) were identified as Australian blacktip sharks. This discovery extends the range of this tropical species over 1000km southwards into temperate waters off Sydney.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/04/australian-hybrid-fish-story-media-jumps-the-shark/

 

[werepossum]

Here's some background on how the media has misused the story.



Picture worth a thousand words:

Interesting link, thanks. The media is usually scientifically illiterate, often pushing an agenda, and always looking for sensational headlines, so I'm not at all surprised when they get it wrong.

One reason that scientists so often mention climate change even when it appears almost certainly not a factor might be that doing so increases the chance of getting some funding from the climate change pile.

It's possible that hybridization occurs fairly often but is seldom looked for, since it takes genetic testing to know for sure. It's also possible though that there is an environmental factor. Climate is always changing, as are most factors in the environment, so it's possible that a small shift in climate might cause a change in prey or competition distribution. Forces that cause speciation can reverse, causing very closely related species to recombine.

 

[peonyu]

Could also be explained by over hunting of certain species, Asians [Chinese] love to cut the fins off of live sharks and then toss them back into the ocean to slowly bleed to death. If a certain species numbers are lowered enough then its possible they will try to mate with other similar shark types...Its been seen before in other species. Wolf/Coyote mixes should be rare, but most "Wolf" populations in the US today are heavily mixed with Coyote DNA since the last full blood Wolves had nothing left to mate with after the White man shot them all dead.

 

[manimal]

Since they are hybrids they should also have kers. Wonder what the city driving is like.