- Not all of these sharks are dangerous, but they sure are strange in their own ways.
Sharks are fascinating, ancient creatures. Over the hundreds of millions of years they’ve existed, they often developed into incredibly strange forms.
It’s not like bizarre sharks are all extinct, though. We’ve previously written about a few of them, but we couldn’t have possibly covered all of them in one article.
So, we figured it might be a good time to revisit the weird world of sharks. Here are seven more strange and unusual sharks lurking in ocean depths (and sometimes in rivers and golf courses).
1) Saw Shark
Saw sharks resemble sawfish, and the two are indeed related. But there’s one big difference — saw sharks are sharks (what a shocker) while sawfish are rays.
Most saw sharks live in coastal waters around Africa, Asia, and Australia. The odd one out is the Bahamas saw shark that’s found unsurprisingly around the Bahamas.
The most distinctive feature of a saw shark is its long tooth-lined rostrum, or snout. Despite it being the most striking thing about the shark, marine biologists aren’t exactly sure how the shark uses the saw.
It’s covered in sensory organs, so it must serve some kind of perceptive purpose. That said, the multiple teeth on its sides suggest it may also be a defensive or hunting weapon.
2) Cookiecutter Shark
The cookiecutter shark (also known as the cigar shark) is a small-ish, two-foot-long, deep-diving shark. Despite its relatively small size, you wouldn’t want to get bitten by one due to its bizarre feeding strategy.
Cookiecutter sharks have thick, strong lips that they use to suction onto larger prey animals. They then use their sharp teeth to cut a circular, fleshy chunk out of the victim.
Cookiecutter sharks’ rather gruesome bite marks have been found on everything from whales to other sharks. They’ve also been spotted suctioning onto submarines and trying to bite through the hull.
Their eyesight is obviously not great.
3) Ninja Lanternshark
The ninja lanternshark’s name is very accurate. First, it’s entirely pitch black, just like the garb of a ninja in popular culture.
That said, it also glows like a lantern. Like other lanternsharks, this ninja has a bioluminescent stomach that shines blue.
The glow has two purposes. Near the surface, the glow looks like sunlight filtering through the water to distract predators.
As the shark dives deeper (up to 4,700 feet), its shining stomach turns into a weapon and begins to attract prey animals. Just like a ninja, it has weaved defense and offense into one trick.
4) Thresher Shark
Thresher sharks are well-known for their unusually elongated top tail fin that can be as long as the rest of the shark. Unlike what you might think, the long tail doesn’t help the fish swim.
Instead, it’s a hunting tool. Thresher sharks hunt by swimming into a school of smaller fish and threshing their flexible tail fins around.
As the rapidly whipping fin strikes the other fish, it knocks them out. The thresher shark can then go to town and munch on its helpless victims to its heart’s content.
It’s like eating fish from a barrel.
5) Bull Shark
The bull shark is a large, up to 10-foot-long shark found in coastal waters all around the world. It’s a notable predator for two reasons — its aggression and ability to live in fresh water.
Bull sharks are, to put it lightly, kind of psycho. They’re one of, if not the most aggressive shark species and likely responsible for the majority of all shark attacks on humans.
You’re also never safe from them. They are just fine with fresh water and regularly swim up rivers. In fact, they’ve found bull sharks that swam up the Mississippi all the way to Illinois.
But the most bizarre place people have found bull sharks is on a golf course. A group of sharks got trapped in a gold resort’s pond after a nearby river flooded and lived there for 20 years.
6) Angular Roughshark
The angular roughshark is one bizarre creature. These approximately triangle-shaped deep-sea sharks are also called pig sharks because of their weird face.
The shark has a flattened head with two nostril-like holes, which looks kind of like a pig’s snout. They also reportedly make a pig-like grunting noise when pulled out of the water.
Sadly, these weirdoes are pulled out of the water much too often. Although it’s hard to say how many of these elusive sharks there are, biologists believe their populations are crashing because angular roughsharks tend to get accidentally stuck in fishing nets.
7) Pocket Shark
The pocket shark is a small-to-medium-sized shark that lives in the deep ocean west of South America — we think. These sharks are rarely seen or caught, so very little is actually known about them.
What we do know, though, is that they have pockets. Near each of its pectoral fins, the pocket shark has a small pocket-like gland.
The pockets’ purpose, however, is a mystery like so much else about the pocket shark. Biologists believe they may hold bioluminescent secretions for attracting either prey or mates (or both).