{"id":9641,"date":"2016-08-11T08:32:53","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T08:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=9641"},"modified":"2016-08-11T08:32:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T08:32:53","slug":"unraveling-the-jaw-dropping-goblin-shark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/unraveling-the-jaw-dropping-goblin-shark\/","title":{"rendered":"Unraveling the jaw-dropping goblin shark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Goblin sharks have revealed a remarkable biting mechanism, named \u201cslingshot feeding,\u201d which involves high-speed manipulation of the species\u2019 highly protrusible jaws.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"(Left)<\/a>
(Left) Video stills show a goblin shark\u2019s protruding jaws (elapsed time is shown in milliseconds). (Right) Goblin shark \u201cslingshot feeding.\u201d Jaw movement is extremely rapid: about 0.3 seconds from \u201ca\u201d to \u201ce\u201d. Photo: NHK, Illustration: Hokkaido University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A research team, led by Emeritus Professor Kazuhiro Nakaya of Japan\u2019s Hokkaido University, analyzed world-first footage captured by public broadcaster NHK in which two goblin sharks separately captured prey on a total of five occasions. The research has unraveled a century-old mystery surrounding how the deep-sea shark utilizes its protruding jaws, among other factors, to feed itself.<\/span>

The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) was first discovered in deep waters off Japan in 1898.<\/span>

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A goblin shark pre-jaw projection (above) and post-jaw projection (below). Photo: Okinawa Churashima Foundation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The biting process, named \u201cslingshot feeding\u201d by the researchers, involved the projection of the jaws at speeds of up to 3.1 meters per second\u2014the fastest speed recorded for a fish\u2014over distances comparable to 8.6\u20139.4 percent of the total length of the shark\u2019s body, far outranking the jaw protrusion of other kinds of shark. The researchers also newly discovered that the sharks opened and closed their mouths again during jaw-retraction, for unknown reasons.<\/span>

The researchers concluded that the shark, which has a slow swimming speed, has evolved to adapt to deep-sea environments where food is scarce, possibly compensating for its slow swimming speed.\u00a0<\/span>

Known as Mitsukuri sharks in Japan, goblin sharks are so called in Western nations due to their somewhat alarming appearance: a pinkish body lacking proper pigment, exposed teeth and protruding jaws. Until now, few details were known about the species. The new findings on once shallow-water-dwelling sharks are likely to have a strong impact on future studies relating to how fish adapt to deep-sea environments.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Goblin sharks have revealed a remarkable biting mechanism, named \u201cslingshot feeding,\u201d which involves high-speed manipulation of the species\u2019 highly protrusible jaws. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808-150x128.jpg",150,128,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",95,41,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",300,128,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",96,41,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/3808.jpg",150,64,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Biology<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}