Lengthy-lost sailback shark rediscovered after greater than 50 years

One of many rarest sharks on this planet has turned up in Papua New Guinea, some 50 years after it was final reported.

Adorned with a curiously massive and deep dorsal fin, the sailback houndshark (Gogolia filewoodi) was first described by scientists in 1973, when a pregnant feminine shark was caught in Papua New Guinea’s Astrolabe Bay, close to the Gogol River. This single animal remained the one document of the species for many years.

Jack Sagumai on the World Wildlife Fund-Pacific in Papua New Guinea and his colleagues have been gathering fisheries knowledge straight from native communities as a part of a challenge supporting the nation’s Nationwide Plan of Motion on Sharks and Rays. In March 2020, they obtained fairly the shock: pictures of a number of small sharks caught close to the mouth of the Gogol River, all underneath a meter lengthy and with a pronounced dorsal fin.

In complete, there have been 5 such sharks, later decided to be females. In 2022, one other fisher discovered a male close by. With the assistance of William White on the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Analysis Organisation in Australia, the staff confirmed these fish have been long-lost sailback houndsharks.

“When he talked about that this species has been very elusive, it bought us excited,” says Sagumai.

Though the discovering represents the primary scientific document of the shark in additional than 50 years, fishers in Astrolabe Bay do report sometimes encountering these sharks. They largely discover sailback houndsharks across the mouth of the Gogol River when fishing for drum, says Sagumai.

“It seems to desire deeper waters and accompany different fish that usually feed close to the brackish river mouth,” he says.

For the reason that shark has solely been present in one small area, it could be a “microendemic” species, with a spread restricted to a sliver of Astrolabe Bay.

“Or at one time it had a wider distribution inside that a part of the world – Indonesia, Papua New Guinea or one thing – and now it’s simply all the way down to this final little remnant inhabitants,” says David Ebert at San José State College in California. The identical area additionally hosts microendemic bamboo and epaulette sharks, he provides.

Particulars on the sailback houndshark’s biology and inhabitants measurement are nonetheless missing, says Sagumai. However two deceased specimens at the moment are saved on the College of Papua New Guinea, and the staff plans to collaborate with researchers in Australia and Florida to research the sharks’ DNA.

“These efforts will assist create a genetic baseline for future monitoring and information safety methods,” he says.