Spiny shark sleepover

Rare Catch: prickly shark (c) Monterey Bay Aquarium/Randy Wilder

A very rare shark makes a very brief visit to the Aquarium.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Most don’t know that prickly sharks have spines on the scales of their upper bodies, that they live in deep, dark waters or that they are endangered.

That’s because virtually no one ever lay eyes on them in the wild, let alone in an aquarium: The shark taken from the head of the Monterey submarine canyon to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last night was only the second ever held in captivity. The male weighs 189 pounds and is more than six feet long.

Aquarium staff decided to release the shark this afternoon with a tag that will hopefully allow them to monitor its movements. (The last spiny shark held in an aquarium was kept for only a week.)

“This species of shark prefers deep, cold marine habitats so it is very fatty,” says Monterey Bay Aquarium spokesperson Karen Jeffries. “It was top heavy, and kept flipping over, so we felt more comfortable releasing it immediately.”

The shark’s stopover comes just after the aquarium received three cowcods, collected from Tanner Bank off San Diego, for permanent exhibition. The cowcod, a rose-colored rockfish predator measuring about a meter in length, is a species of importance due to commercial and recreational overfishing, as well as bycatch.

“The cowcod added on June 9 were collected by researchers at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in waters more than 1,000 feet deep,” read the MBA statement. “They have never been exhibited at any aquarium before.”