Sea Creature Of The Week (week 2)

Welcome to Week 2 of the Sea Creature Of The Week blog. A blog where I write about a different fascinating sea creature every week, from proterozoic to holocene, extinct and extant.

This Week's Sea creature is...

The Frilled Shark

This beautifully strange shark is often considered a living fossil. But it's no worry for coelacanths because frilled sharks have only been around since the late Cretaceous period which means they appeared around 170 million years after coelacanths. Two species of frilled shark are found throughout regions in the atlantic and pacific oceans, they reach depths as low as 50,000 feet (1,500 meters) and as high as 1,600 feet (500 meters) on the continental shelf of the sunlight zone. The frilled shark preys on squid mostly but are also known to east a variety of fish and other sharks, they prefer to hunt near the sea floor on the outer continental shelf and upper slopes. 

Part of what makes the frilled shark so strange is the elongated body and the lower placement of its fins, giving it eel-like movement and appearance which allows it to lunge quickly and capture prey, sometimes swallowing it whole. Frilled sharks can reach length up to 7 feet (2 meters) long but commonly reach closer to 6 feet in average length, with the males reaching shorter lengths than the females. 

Little information is available about what animals are predators to Frilled Sharks. However, it is suspected that larger sharks that live in the same area may prey upon them. The most likely predator would be Great White, since they are large and have been known to eat other sharks often.