Happy Shark Week!
In honor of the One True American Holiday (all other holidays are less true, due to lower shark content), I spent about an hour reading about sharks on Wikipedia.
Important findings from a solid morning's research: sharks often have weird names.
For example: the birdbeak dogfish. That's a real animal! Ditto the flaccid catshark and, perhaps weirdest of all, the porbeagle, which doesn't sound like a fish at all.
This article originally appeared on PopularScience.com August 14, 2012.
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Dumb Gulper Shark
The dumb gulper shark (Centrophorus harrissoni), also known as the dumb shark or Harrison's dogfish, is an extremely rare deepwater shark native to the areas around Australia and New Zealand. It's wildly overfished for its meat and its liver oil and its population may have decreased by 99% since the 1970s.
Birdbeak Dogfish
The birdbeak dogfish, Deania calcea, lives in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, mostly in the seas around Japan, southern Australia, New Zealand, and western Africa. It is listed as being harmless to humans.
Tasseled Wobbegong
Wobbegongs can also be called carpet sharks. But why would you ever call something a carpet shark when you've been given the opportunity to say "wobbegong"? (The word means "shaggy beard" in an Aboriginal Australian language.)
Related: wobbegongs are often eaten in Australia. If you order a fish and chips there, there's a pretty good chance you're actually having a wobbegong and chips.
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