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Mysterious 80million-year-old shark species caught

Mysterious 80million-year-old shark species caught off Portuguese coast




80 million year old species

Snake Shark

 

A REAL life sea monster “from the age of the dinosaurs” has caused waves in the scientific world after being caught off the Algarve coast.

The ultra-rare frilled shark — which has a body like a snake but the jaws of a terrifying sea predator — was hauled out of the water by EU fish stock researchers, reports The Sun.

The Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere have now dubbed the shark a “living fossil” as the species dates back 80 million years.

This makes it one of very few creatures from the dinosaur times that are still around, with the shark discovered off the coast of Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

The male fish measured 1.5 metres in length and was captured at a depth of 701 metres off the resort of Portimao.

Another ‘snake shark’ was caught in Australia. Check out the video below.




Ever Hear of Megaladon?

It was the biggest shark ever to have swum the oceans of the world.

Some people believe it’s still out there.

Check out this story and say what you think.

Is this fearsome monster still out there?





Animal X Files Opened For All To See Check Them Out!

Animal X UnCut

After months of waiting at last the Animal X Files are opened and are being made available for all to see. In a new Web based series called Animal X UnCut.

We have started with the San Francisco Bay Monsters as featured in Animal X Natural Mystery Unit – Monsters of the Deep.

Where Bill and Bob Clark describe the mysterious creatures they have seen and video taped in San Francisco Bay. Both interviews are now available to watch UNCUT. Also the video is available in its original form and UNCUT.




You’ll be surprised at what one of the brothers thinks these monsters are.

Check out Bob and Bill Clark’s UnCut interview and video recording of the mysterious Monsters of San Francisco Bay here:

Monster of San Francisco Bay

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Minnesota Iceman

The Animal X Files are opened for all to see. The Animal X Files are an archive of the middle to late 20th and 21st century’s most important international cryptozoology and mysterious nature’s oral and video history of stories, events and happenings.

With this new series of Animal X UnCut video clips, we are trying to preserve this unique collection; to create an online museum, if you like, of some of the world’s most well known cryptozoological and mysterious nature stories.

Chupacabra

If you are interested in cryptozoology, mysterious nature, paranormal, folklore the supernatural and monsters then you are invited to be part of this project by supporting the preservation of this collection. Watch out for more details. Subscribe to be notified.

Animal X UnCut is a unique new web based series where you can watch interviews and sightings from Animal X and Animal X Natural Mystery Unit – uncut, and make up your own mind.
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Top 6 mysterious animal sightings. What do you think they are?

The world is full of mysteries, but none like the mysterious animals that live in the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes. Here’s 6 of the top mysterious animal sighting. What do you think they are?

Top 6 mysterious animal sightings

 

From the Bloop, a mysterious creature that lives in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, to the San Fransisco Bay monster to the monster of Lake Van in Turkey. There are hundreds of stories from all over the world about mysterious monsters of the deep.

These creatures have been seen by hundreds of people but no one knows what these creatures are.

This video clip looks at six of the most mysterious creatures seen by humans.

  • Caddy from Cadboro Bay near Vancouver Canada. Sightings go back centuries.
  • Morgawr from Cornwall in England – said to have been conjured by by a Wizard.
  • New England Sea Serpent. With links to Indigenous American culture
  • Swedish Lake Monster. One of Europe’s most mysterious. It even has ‘protected’ status.
  • Howick Falls monster. The Inkanyumba a deadly giant snake like creature
  • The Monster of Lake Van. Another lake monster that has been around for centuries.

Top 6 mysterious animal sightings.


 

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Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile

Bizarre Reptile

Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile



Fossils shed light on bizarre reptile. A crocodile-sized creature that lived 242 million years ago was the first known vegetarian marine reptile, according to new fossil evidence.

Two specimens unearthed in China reveal details of the animal’s skull and how it fed.

Named Atopodentatus, scientists say its hammer-shaped skull helped it to feed on underwater plants.

Only a handful of marine reptiles, living or extinct, are known to be herbivores.

Dr Nick Fraser of National Museums Scotland, who worked on the fossil, said it belongs in the pages of a children’s storybook by Dr Seuss, which depicts animals with a strange jumble of features.

The reptile was “a bizarre, bizarre animal”, he explained.

“We envisage it scraping algae and the like off rocks underwater.

“Herbivorous marine reptiles are very rare – this is the oldest record that we know of.”

Strangely toothed

The first fossils of the creature were discovered a few years ago.

It was named Atopodentatus unicus, which is Latin for “unique strangely toothed”.

A reconstruction of the animal’s head

New fossils unearthed in China’s Yunnan Province by Chun Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing give a detailed picture of the animal’s skull.

The discoveries, unveiled in the journal, Science Advances, show that rather than having a zipper-like snout as previously thought, the animal had a wide hammer-headed jaw filled with peg-like front teeth.

Play-Doh

Scientists used clay to make a model of the jaw to work out how the animal fed.

“To figure out how the jaw fit together and how the animal actually fed, we bought some children’s clay, kind of like Play-Doh, and rebuilt it with toothpicks to represent the teeth,” said co-researcher Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.

“We looked at how the upper and lower jaw locked together, and that’s how we proceeded and described it.”

He said Atopodentatus also helps tell a bigger story about the world’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.

It lived at a time when the Earth was recovering from the loss of 90% of all marine mammals.

“The existence of specialised animals like Atopodentatus unicus shows us that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously thought,” he said.

“And it’s definitely a reptile that no one would have thought to exist – look at it, it’s crazy!”

What you can make with clay and toothpicks

Other bizarre sea and river monsters

There are still many strange creatures lurking in the waters around the world. From the Monster of Lake Van in Turkey to the various unidentified creatures that live off the west of of Britain, the Golden Gate San Fransisco Bay monster to the Altamaha-ha river monster of Georgia in the USA.

Here’s a video from Animal X Natural Mystery Unit that looks at sea and river monsters.



Animal X Files coming soon

Animal X Files coming soon.


Animal X is the first and premier TV series that looks at cryptozoology, paranormal, supernatural, aliens and UFO.

Its files go back to last century. As well as having files that are full of stories from today.

At last Animal X is opening its files for the first time to the public.

In Animal X Files

For the first time interviews with eyewitnesses, scientists, experts and others are going to be made available UN CUT right here on AnimalX.net, the official website of the TV series.

el Chupacabra

For the first time you will be able to see un-cut interviews with people who have been attacked by el Chupacabra. People who have seen and had a close encounter with Bigfoot.

People who have been abducted by aliens and people who seen lake and sea and river monsters.

People who have seen ghosts and much more.

Also interviews with scientists who try to explain what is going on.

People who believe we are in the ‘End Times’.

Experts who have also investigated these phenomena and have no explanation.

All Un-Cut.

Monsters

Animal X Files will also have uncut actuality from expeditions and hunts for these creatures.

Here’s the 2 trailers that will give you some idea of what you can expect.

Want to know more? want to be informed when these new videos are released?

Sign up on the left to be notified by email every time a new Animal X clip is uploaded.

Click on the RSS feed button.

Or sign up and become a member of Animal X. It’s free.


 

Animal X From the Cutting Room Floor trailer 1 – Looking for Mothman

Become part of Animal X Files follow us on Twitter by clicking below. Or join us on Facebook.





Man catches winged fish with evil eyes!

Man catches winged fish with evil eyes!

A FISH with wings, creepy green eyes and a nose like a wizard’s hat has been branded an alien after being caught by a shocked fisherman. From the Daily Star

Evil eyed alien fish?

 




 

The slimy black creature, which has a ridge of pointed quills on its back, was spotted among the day’s catch and photographed. It’s the latest in a series of strange finds in the world’s oceans and comes after another fish was found with legs.

A terrifying new species of shark – with a pitch black body – has also been discovered in the depths of the sea. The newest find was caught 30 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, by a fishing vessel. When a crew member posted a picture of it online, the fish was described as an alien by Reddit users. “Wow, it looks like an link in evolution,” wrote one person. “What is that birdfish?” Another posted: “We don’t need no stinkin’ aliens – we already got them!”

The truth.

But other eagle-eyed commenters identified the fish as a black long-nosed chimaera. Chimaeras, which are related to sharks, are usually found between 8,500ft and 660ft deep. Reddit user McGuire72, who posted his photo of the creature online, said it was thrown back in the ocean. He wrote: “Unfortunately, from what I’ve read here, he’s a deep-sea fish and likely didn’t survive to get back down to the bottom.” This from National Geographic Kids.




Want more underwater mysteries?

Check this out from the Animal X Natural Mystery Unit.  A one hour special on monsters of the deep. Ever hear of the Bloop? or the Welsh sea monster? What about the Monster of San Francisco Bay?

Monsters of the Deep.

Video of rare giant squid in Japanese harbour

https://youtu.be/8zlVrFK47K8




Video of rare giant squid in Japanese harbour

A giant squid provided a rare treat for onlookers in Toyama Bay when one swam into the harbour.
The 3.7m (12ft) cephalopod was much smaller than the 13m they can grow to.

It spent several hours in the harbour on Christmas Eve and was filmed by local divers.

Professional underwater cameraman Takayoshi Kojima told the BBC he rushed to the harbour when a marina manager called and he helped guide the squid to the exit to the sea, where it finally disappeared.

Japanese researchers took pictures of the elusive creature hunting 900m down, enveloping its prey by coiling its tentacles into a ball.

giant squid

The images show giant squid, known as Architeuthis, are more vigorous hunters than has been supposed.

The images, captured in the Pacific Ocean, appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Documentary companies have invested millions of dollars trying to film adult giant squid in their natural environment. These efforts have met with little success – though one team has managed to capture a juvenile on film.

Japanese fishermen have taken snaps of an adult at the surface but, until now, no one had obtained images of the animal in its deep-sea hunting grounds.

Slippery customer

In their efforts to photograph the huge cephalopod, Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori, have been using a camera and depth recorder attached to a long-line, which they lower into the sea from their research vessel.

Below the camera, they suspend a weighted jig – a set of ganged hooks to snag the squid – along with a single Japanese common squid as bait and an odour lure consisting of chopped-up shrimps.

At 0915 local time on 30 September 2004, they struck lucky. At a depth close to 1km in waters off Japan’s Ogasawara Islands, an 8m-long Architeuthis wrapped its long tentacles around the bait, snagging one of them on the jig.

Kubodera and Mori took more than 550 images of the giant squid as it made repeated attempts to detach itself.

The pictures show the squid spreading its arms, enveloping the long-line and swimming away in its efforts to struggle free.

Finally, four hours and 13 minutes after it was first snagged, the attached tentacle broke off, allowing the squid to escape. The researchers retrieved a 5.5m portion with the line.

Severed appendage

“It was exciting to get a live Architeuthis tentacle. It was still functioning when we got it on the boat,” Dr Kubodera told BBC News.

giant squid tentacle

The large suckers repeatedly gripped the boat deck – and Dr Kubodera’s fingers when he prodded the severed appendage.

“The grip wasn’t as strong as I expected; it felt sticky,” he explained.

But while other researchers have suggested that Architeuthis is a rather sluggish creature, the images show it is in fact an energetic predator.

Dr Steve O’Shea, of the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, told the BBC News website that he was extremely pleased for the researchers.

Kubodera, he said, had “ever-so-quietly been working away in the background on this for a number of years”.

And Dr O’Shea, a world renowned expert on giant squid, added: “From the point of view of the public, who believe this squid is the largest, the meanest, most aggressive squid that we have – it is hugely significant.”

Trawling threat

The Auckland-based researcher said now that the squid had been caught on camera, researchers could focus on other, lesser known squid species and on conservation.

Bottom-trawling by fisheries is destroying squid egg masses on the seabed, Dr O’Shea claimed. Evidence for this comes from an efficient squid predator – the sperm whale.

“Five of the species of squid that were staple in the diet of the sperm whale are recognised in New Zealand as threatened solely as a consequence of the effects of deep-sea bottom-trawling.”

“[Sperm whales] are returning from the Antarctic on their historic migratory route to one of the richest regions on Earth in terms of squid diversity. But the larder is bare and the poor things are washing up on the beaches here starved.”

The giant squid is by no means the largest known. Several other species, including the colossal squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are thought to grow larger.





The man who keeps finding new species of shark

The man who keeps finding new species of shark

By Sara Lentati
BBC World Service

Shark

Most people have heard of great white, hammerhead and tiger sharks but there are many other species – and every year a number of new ones are discovered.

One enthusiast has, so far, identified 24 types of shark and related fish that were previously unknown.

Dave Ebert has a favourite market in Taiwan. He’s been going there since he was a student 30 years ago.

It’s hot, humid and noisy – baskets are filled to the brim with a staggering variety of fish. Beach umbrellas provide some relief from the sun as puddles of water collect on the concrete floor.

“I started seeing a lot of species and I was going, ‘What the heck is this?’ And in many cases it was a known species but we didn’t know it occurred here. Then I realised there were some species we didn’t even have names for, they weren’t even known about, and here people were catching them and selling them,” he says, remembering his first visit.

“I collected so many specimens I filled up my suitcases. I rinsed them in water and preserved them in ethanol and basically just wrapped them up in my clothes to keep them moist and put them in plastic bags so they wouldn’t leak.”

The fishermen, wary at first, soon warmed to him. “Now when I go back, they know me and if they’ve brought in something unusual they’ll come and find me. That’s how I’ve found some really cool stuff.

Ebert with a frilled shark caught by Taiwanese fishermen © Dave Ebert / PSRC

Bull sharks at the market © Dave Ebert / PSRC

Here’s a video clip about the world’s biggest ever shark Megalodon.

 

Meanwhile Dave Ebert has found 10 new species in this market alone. In all, over the past three decades, Ebert has named 24 new species, including sharks, rays, sawfish and ghost sharks – these cartilaginous fish are all related.

He discovered his first while he was on a research ship off the Namibian coast in the late 1980s.

Ebert in the Namibian desert, 1987 © Dave Ebert / PSRC

“I did a lot of work along the skeleton coast. We would just head off and tell someone we’d be back in a couple of months and if you don’t hear from us for 10 weeks come look for us.

“We’d go up to some of the towns to get supplies and then just go fishing along the coast to see what you could catch, no-one had really surveyed along there.”

It was one of these trips that he found a paddlenose ghost shark, which he affectionately refers to as Paddlenose Pete.

Paddlenose Pete © Dave Ebert / PSRC

The southern African frilled shark © Dave Ebert / PSRC

On the same coast, before long, he came across another new species the southern African frilled shark.

“I was at sea and I was just thinking, ‘This sure looks different,’ but at that point you think you’re either losing your mind or you’re really on to something. It took me about 20 years but I finally got it named in 2009,” he says.

He named another after his shark-loving niece as a graduation gift – Pristiophorus lanae or Lana’s sawshark.

Lana’s sawshark © Dave Ebert / PSRC

And he’s made other discoveries much closer to home. Once, he and a student were classifying a new species of ghost shark that he had found in Africa.

They asked a museum to send a specimen of a similar species from its collection to help with identification – but what arrived in the post wasn’t what they expected.

“My student opened up the package and looked at it and she says, ‘I don’t think this is what it’s supposed to be Dave,’ and I looked at it and I had no idea what it was.

“In fact, it had been labelled incorrectly and was actually a completely new species, so we ended up naming that one too. It was a new ghost shark from the Bahamas… it was nice for it to just show up on our door!” (The Chimaera bahamaensis, or Bahamas ghost shark, is pictured at the top of the page.)

Ebert estimates that he has another 30 or so new species of sharks, rays, and ghost sharks in his collection in California waiting for formal identification.

He keeps them in glass jars of preserving fluid that line row after row of shelves at the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, where he is research director.

“Sometimes you have that eureka moment where you just know that’s a newbie. More often than not though you look at it and think this one needs looking at more closely. I’m usually a little reluctant to jump up and down immediately,” he says.

Formally identifying a new species can take months or years. Comparisons with other similar species have to be made, measurements must be noted and a detailed description of its appearance recorded.

Diagram of the paddlenose ghost shark © Elaine Grant and Leonard Compagno / South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity

Technology can’t replace traditional methods, says Ebert. “Today there are a lot of molecular tools available but you have to be careful as you can literally get an ant and an aardvark to come out genetically the same if you want.”

Once the physical and genetic characteristics have been identified, the species needs a name. This needs to be registered and approved by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

As well as looking for previously unclassified sharks, Ebert also documents what fishermen catch. “There are species that 27 years ago were really common and now you don’t really see. Then other species I never used to see are now caught all the time.

“Twenty-five years ago these fishermen would be catching fish [at depths of] 100m and 200m. Now they say they have to fish down to 900m.” Scientists believe that many new sharks could be discovered at these depths.

Finding new species is not as unusual as it might sound. Last year 18,000 new species of animals and plants were identified.

“There are few places on Earth where you can go and not be in the proximity of undescribed species,” says Quentin Wheeler from the International Institute for Species Exploration.

“But until scientists can determine where they fit into the evolutionary relationship, and give them formal names, we don’t consider them officially known.”

At the moment, scientists know of more than 500 species of shark – a fifth of which have been found in the past decade.

“You really are being an explorer,” says Ebert. “Whether you’re going to a market or going out to sea. Little kids tend to go through that dinosaur and shark phase in life and I never grew out of it. My parents gave me a little shark book when I was about five – I still have it – and I was just fascinated.

“When I was 10 years old I told my folks, ‘I’m going to travel the world and study sharks,’ and they told me to ‘follow your dream’. I love it. I get to experience things that most people never will.”

Here’s a clip about sharks in London!

 


Creepy ‘sea monsters’ falling from sky in Alaska.

Creepy ‘sea monsters’ falling from sky in Alaska.

© AP creepy sea monster

As if these scary-looking creatures weren’t terrifying enough in the water, they’re now falling out of the sky in Alaska. For real.

Locals in Fairbanks have been finding lampreys, foot-long eel-like fish with horrifying teeth, around the town after dropping out of the sky.

One was found in a shop’s car park, while another was found in someone’s garden. Eww.

And why is this horror happening? We hear you cry. Well, it’s all thanks to the local birds, apparently.

According to Seattle’s CBS Local, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained what was happening on its Facebook page, writing: “Gulls are picking them out of the Chena River with their bills and then dropping the squirming critters while in flight.

“Arctic lampreys spawn in the Chena River, and live in the mud underwater as juveniles for several years. However, many lifelong Alaskans have never seen one of these fascinating fish up close because their body shape and feeding habits make them difficult to catch.”

They also posted more pictures of the creepy creatures. Look if you dare:

Lamprey latched on to the fish tank glass in Fairbanks ADF&G office.

Posted by Alaska Department of Fish and Game – Official on Wednesday, June 3, 2015


Mysterious sea creature stuns onlookers

 

 

 

Mysterious creature stuns onlookers

https://youtu.be/ozv06YO8WqE

The sea is big, scary and full of things that want to eat you.

If you ever find yourself in doubt as to whether or not to go in the water, it can be helpful to remember the sheer number of giant teeth, suckers and appendages-yet-unknown-to-science that live in it.

A spine-chilling, luminous, snakelike creature was recently captured in Taiwan by a man who was out fishing at a port in Penghu.

The fisherman, Wei Cheng Jian, caught the strange creature and posted a video of his find on Facebook in hopes of getting a few answers.

However, Jian, who seemed more than a bit nervous in the video, removed the clip from his Facebook page shortly afterwards – but not before the footage was copied, shared, and incited a little internet confusion.

In the video, the three-foot-long bright-green creature is seen slithering slowly across the dock’s concrete floor and shooting out a long pink tongue as if searching for a prey.

The seemingly alien-like critter sparked a huge debate online with persons from science fiction backgrounds to an expertise in the natural world throwing in their two-cents about the creature’s origin.

And though an exact answer has not yet been determined, the stringy green mass is strongly believed to be a ribbon worm (or, Nemertea) – a carnivorous worm that comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors.

Some species live on land or reside in freshwater — but many of them choose to stay in the sea and live burrowed in the sand. They can also grow to be as long as 60 meters.

 

 


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