Monday, February 27, 2012

Keanu vs shark

Look at the eye on that shark ... !! When I first saw this I thought that that image must have been photoshopped ... seriously, what shark has eyes like that? Crazy eyes. o_O


But then I looked into it a little more and have now determined that this is probably a thresher shark, and they actually do have these huge round eyes. Further, there are three species of thresher shark, the largest of which, the common thresher, can become up to six meters and 500 kilos +. There isn't much to go by in this picture since it only shows part of the animal, but I'm thinking that this is a bigeye thresher, Alopias superciliosus, which is slightly smaller. (No prizes for guessing on what basis I drew that conclusion.) Thresher sharks are solitary and mostly pelagic. They have a modified circulatory system so that they can retain body heat to some extent. They can live for up to 20 years. All three species are on the IUCN vulnerable list. Of course.

You really can learn something new every day, and from the most unexpected sources. ;-)

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