The Week in Sharks: They've Been Getting Laid Far Longer Than You, You Tasty Monkey Morsel You

Oldest preggers fish found. Australian scientists discovered an embryo in a fossil primordial fish (called a placoderm, which is Latin for something awesome). Not an egg, not a teenage fish with separation issues, not a plastic fish doll that cries when you tip it over and seems to have been mutilated in a fit of prepubescent fishminism, but an embryo, replete with placenta and umbilical cord. This internal gestation of young mirrors the reproductive gizmos of many species of chondrichthyes far more than it resembles fish proper, and this is the earliest proof of this type of reproduction found to date.

Since this particular placoderm dates back 375 million years, it is almost undoubtedly a forerunner of both sharks and us monkey folk. Also, since it dates back 375 million years, it probably gave fishlip-service to chastity and then got it on freaky upside-down style in the kelp fields with a rough-hewn but earnest nautiloid.

{from Nature via those bedroom-eyed fish-sexers at Reuters}


Sharks, like Americans, go to Mexico but still end up eating American. Three sharks attacks and counting in the Yankee colonial outpost of Zihuatenejo, Mexico, have surfers panicking, which will hopefully briefly quell the whole self-righteous, in-touch-with-Gaia shit that also, at least in Southern California, somehow melded seamlessly with roofies. The be-denticled culprit(s) have yet to be identified, but Mexican officials—including the fucking Navy—are just merrily a-slaughterin'.

This technique is of questionable effectiveness so far (it presumes a single or select group of monkey-snackers, whereas no sharks actually enjoy monkey-snacking; we taste sort of rank, and anyway, it's been widely known for centuries that you just don't eat raw food in Mexico. Furthermore, from an anthropomorphological perspective, as Capt. Malcom Reynolds once said, "If anyone tries to kill you, you kill them right back"), and while no one's necessarily any safer, at least the media's been able to have a field day. So there'd be many a Malcolm Gladwell in the making disappointed if the Lunar Weight solution gets adopted: figure out a way to design a surfboard and refine surfing technique so that every buoyant Spicoli doesn't necessarily resemble a sea lion with cerebral palsy.

But until that day, the Spring Break nom nom noms will likely continue.

[edited to add] And then there's this not-so-much-green-as-puce perspective from the Michael Weiner nee Savage of ichthyology.

{from the stoically inedible AP, via ABC news}


Basking sharks enjoy great syrup, Pete Doherty. British scientists tracked basking shark migrations "from waters southwest of the Isle of Man to Canada." And like reporters, the massive, planktivorous sharks were proven to have no real conception that "the Isle of Man" and "Canada" may differ in their levels of specificity. Whether or not basking sharks made derisive comments about Quebec in their ancient, mellifluous basking-shark language remains the realm of speculation.

What is apparent, however, is that the basking shark—already endangered—ranges too far be easily protected with traditional imperial pluck and vigour <sic> from hunting by people who feel that their tummies can make better use of shark fins than said fins' owners can.

Incidentally, the two sharks tracked for this study were named "A" and "B". Hey science! Show some poetry! Lunar Weight recommends "Shark" and "That Other Shark".

{from the UK Times to us noble savages}