{"id":23866,"date":"2024-09-25T09:39:50","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T09:39:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=23866"},"modified":"2024-09-25T10:12:09","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T10:12:09","slug":"new-zealand-scientists-discover-new-ghost-shark-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2024\/09\/new-zealand-scientists-discover-new-ghost-shark-species\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand scientists discover new ‘ghost shark’ species"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) – Scientists have discovered a new species of ghost shark that lives in deep ocean waters near Australia and New Zealand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Australasian Narrow-nosed Spookfish, or Harriotta avia, was found in the Chatham Rise, an area of ocean floor off the east coast of New Zealand\u2019s South Island, by researchers from New Zealand\u2019s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA).<\/p>\n

Scientists had previously believed the spookfish was part of a single globally distributed species, but discovered genetic and morphological differences, NIWA said in a statement Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A deep water animal, the ghost shark is scientifically known as chimaera and is closely related to sharks and rays.<\/p>\n

They are cartilaginous fish \u2013 having skeletons primarily made up of cartilage \u2013 and their embryos grow in egg capsules laid on the sea floor, and feed off egg yolk until they hatch.<\/p>\n

Once hatched, they feed off crustaceans such as shrimp and molluscs, according to NIWA.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarriotta avia is unique due to its elongated, narrow and depressed snout; long, slender trunk; large eyes; and very long, broad pectoral fins. It is a lovely chocolate brown colour,\u201d said Brit Finucci, a fisheries scientist at NIWA, in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cGhost sharks like this one are largely confined to the ocean floor, living in depths of up to 2,600m (8,530 feet). Their habitat makes them hard to study and monitor, meaning we don\u2019t know a lot about their biology or threat status, but it makes discoveries like this even more exciting,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Finucci said that she named the new species after her grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvia means grandmother in Latin; I wanted to give this nod to her because she proudly supported me through my career as a scientist,\u201d said Finucci.<\/p>\n

\u201cChimaeras are also rather ancient relatives \u2013 the grandmas and grandpas \u2013 of fish and I thought the name was well suited.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February 2022, Finucci was part of a team that discovered a newly-hatched\u00a0ghost shark\u00a0which they said could inform their knowledge of the \u201cmysterious\u201d creature.<\/p>\n

The ghost shark was found at a depth of around 1,200 meters (about 3,900 feet) on the Chatham Rise, according to CNN news agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t actually know a lot about ghost sharks,\u201d Finucci told CNN at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do know mostly comes from adult specimens. So it\u2019s very rare and very uncommon to find juveniles of a lot of these species, so that\u2019s why I got quite excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have discovered a new species of ghost shark that lives in deep ocean waters near Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":23876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,984,194,30,351,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-news","category-world","category-environment","category-science-technology","category-headline"],"views":51,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23866"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23878,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23866\/revisions\/23878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}