Scottish scientists surprised by rare ‘sofa shark’

While marine biologists were conducting a deep-sea survey in British waters, off the west coast of Scotland, they had a surprising encounter with a rare false catshark. It continues to be given many labels, which you ll find are all as exceptional just like the racketeer itself. “It’s not unique to Scotland but it’s certainly interesting to look at-it’s a big and baggy looking creature”. It has also been likened to a blobfish which was recently voted to be the world’s ugliest animal. The appealing part of this one, apart from the indisputable fact that the settee vulture is close to never before seen, is it hadn’t been present in the region for 15 existence.

“I was pretty surprised when it landed in our boat”, said Francis Neat, a marine biologist.

The “sofa shark”, also known as false catshark, was caught by scientists doing research for Scottish government agency Marine Scotland. The scientists identified it as female.

“Not too long ago we were told that there was only 32 different types of shark in Scottish waters but in the past year we’ve learned that there are actually 72 different species, many of which are in deep water”.

The Scottish Shark Tagging Programme announced on its website that it is adding the “sofa shark” to the list of elasmobranch species in Scotland, saying that the new addition would bring the total number to 72. “We hadn’t seen one in ten years”. The shark has tiny teeth and usually eats eels, squids and shrimps. Reportedly, these species of shark hold a huge oily liver that makes up between 18-25% of their body mass. This places them at an nearly neutral buoyancy, which allows the shark to maintain its chosen depth near the bottom.

The sofa shark, like most deep-water species, is very susceptible to overfishing because of its slow reproductive rate.