A captain of a well-known Cabo, sport fishing company -
Pisces – last week caught a strange fish- shaped shark in the waters around Los
Cabos.
Captain Jamie Rendon immediately realised he had caught
something very unusual when he hauled aboard the pale pink/whitish creature
with a distended stomach. Further unusual features were the 3 gills on each
side of the head (sharks usually have 5 or 7) and the very rough skin.
Fearing it may be an endangered species he took some
photos and immediately released it back into the sea. Tracy Ehrenberg, Pisces
General Manager, sent the images to biologists in Mexico, hoping for an
identification “We emailed the images to the
California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, and were told that it’s an albino or
leucistic swell shark, given its lack of pigmentation.”
La Paz-based shark expert Felipe Galván-Magaña also
agreed that the shark caught was, most definitely, a Cephaloscyllium
ventriosum. But he pointed out that it was a rather odd specimen due to having
only 3 gill slits on each side of the head, and only three rows of very small
teeth.
Swell sharks are found from
southern Mexico to California, and tend to be timid around humans unless
provoked. They expand with water or air when they feel threatened – which probably
explains the bloated appearance of the shark when it was pulled aboard.