Fish, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 3, 2021

Alien-like cookiecutter sharks terrorize animals of all sizes

Cookiecutter sharks are known for ripping small, cookie-shaped chunks out of sharks and whales much larger than themselves, but a new study finds that they actually terrorize animals of all sizes. The green-eyed, alien-like sharks look like sinister sock puppets made of pastry dough and can grow up to 20...

Sep 10, 2021

Elusive angel shark shows off its ninja ambush skills in rare underwater footage

A young shark glides to the ocean floor, slaps the sandy ground with its head and disappears in a cloud of dust. A pause. A small fish swims by. And then... SNAP! The fish doesn't know what hit it. This is the scene in a stunning new video of a...

Sep 14, 2021

Bizarre pig-faced shark found dead in the Mediterranean Sea. Is it real?

In the water, it looks like any other shark: a swift, gray hunter with steep dorsal fins poking out of its back. But take a close look at its face, and suddenly you're locking eyes with a real-life pig emoji. Meet the angular roughshark (Oxynotus centrina) — better known in...

Nov 3, 2021

Giant shark, possibly a megalodon, feasted on this whale 15 million years ago

A ravenous shark — possibly a megalodon (Otodus megalodon), the largest shark that ever lived — sunk its teeth into a baleen whale up to 15 million years ago in what is now Maryland, according to a new study of the whale's flipper bone. However, the whale was probably already...

Nov 9, 2021

Fish defy death to rub up against great white sharks. Here's why.

Fish keep their friends close and their enemies closer ... but only because they need to exfoliate. Researchers recently discovered that different species of fish use sharks as scrub brushes by pushing up against the sea predator's scaly bodies to get rid of parasites and other irritants. Though this dangerous...

Nov 22, 2021

Video captures great white shark's gruesome attack on a seal near Cape Cod

Calm waters near the Cape Cod coast recently erupted in a display of predatory violence as a great white shark tore into a seal, and an onlooker on a boat captured the attack on video. Peak shark season along coastal Massachusetts is typically August through October, but great white sharks...

Jan 7, 2022

Greenland sharks: Toxic, half-blind giants of the ocean

Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) are the longest-living animals with a backbone, and survive for up to hundreds of years in the deep, cold waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans. Greenland sharks belong to a family called sleeper sharks, which move slowly and stealthily through the water. These sharks...

Feb 8, 2022

What did 'the meg' look like? We have no idea.

What did megalodon, the most massive shark that ever lived, look like? Scientists have no idea, a new study finds. Despite many depictions of the now-extinct shark, including the one in the 2018 sci-fi action movie The Meg, nobody alive today has a clue about the proportions of megalodon's head,...

Feb 17, 2022

Rare, alien-like baby 'ghost shark' discovered off New Zealand coast

Researchers have discovered an exceptionally rare, newly hatched ghost shark near New Zealand's South Island, according to the country's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA). Translucent, gelatinous and crowned with a pair of giant black eyes on its pointed head, the alien-like baby likely belongs to one of...

Mar 3, 2022

Haunting images of 'zombie' shark and other decaying aquarium animals revealed in eerie footage

Unnerving images of a mummified shark that looks like a zombie, as well as other dead and decaying sea creatures, have been captured in eerie new footage of an abandoned aquarium. The spooky viral video was taken by a pair of urban explorers who broke into the unnamed aquarium in...

Mar 18, 2022

Super-rare Greenland shark that washed up on UK beach may be at least 100 years old

A rare Greenland shark that washed up on a U.K. beach could be at least 100 years old, but experts aren't sure why it became stranded. The dead shark was first spotted on the sand in Newlyn Harbour, Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England, on March 13. But before...

Apr 8, 2022

100-year-old Greenland shark that washed up on UK beach had brain infection, autopsy finds

The super-rare Greenland shark that washed ashore in England last month had a brain infection when it died, according to an animal autopsy of its remains. Pathologists discovered evidence of meningitis, an inflammation of the protective membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord, according to a statement from the...

May 5, 2022

World's 'shark tooth capital' teemed with even more extinct species than we knew

Florida is well-known among paleontologists as a rich source of shark fossils. But records of such finds around the state have not been examined systematically — until now. Researchers recently analyzed thousands of fossil specimens in the collection of the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, and in doing...

May 26, 2022

Undersea 'sharkcano' eruption captured in spectacular satellite images

Kavachi Volcano, an active submarine volcano in the Solomon Islands, has long been home to sharks. However their once-peaceful playground in the southwest Pacific Ocean recently became a bit less serene. In recent months, NASA satellite images detected plumes of discolored water over the volcano — tell-tale signs of volcanic...

Jun 1, 2022

What caused this massive megalodon’s mega-toothache?

The enormous, extinct shark megalodon dominated the seas millions of years ago, but even this fearsome ocean carnivore wasn't immune to tooth trouble. Recent analysis of a megalodon (Otodus megalodon) tooth with a rare abnormality — a groove all the way down the middle — hints that the dental deformity...