“…and today we’re talking about fish with an identity crisis. But more on that later.”
Is it a snake? An eel? A buzz saw? The frilled shark is none of those things, and yet it’s something of all three. This creepy looking ocean creature appears to have blunt pearly whites from a distance, but a close look reveals rows and rows of pointed tridents ready to latch onto prey. Why deviate so much from the typical shark weaponry? Sometimes the strange way is the right path in Life, Death, and Taxonomy?
Description
- Uniform dark brown or slate-grey hide
- Rough, sandpaper-ish skin dotted with tiny denticles like most sharks, which is why you can’t pet them back to front without lacerating your hand
- Broad, flattened noggin with a comically short, rounded snout and beady little eyes that’ve seen some things
- Six pairs of gill slits ringing the throat like a bad Elizabethan collar
- Fins playing hard-to-get: a puny dorsal tucked way back near the tail, plus oversized, rounded pelvic and anal ones for a sort of rudder
- Triangular tail fin with no nonsense lobes or notches, just straight-up chisel-edged efficiency
Measure Up
Welcome to the beloved Measure Up segment. The official listener’s favorite part of the show! The part of the show when we present the animal’s size and dimension in relatable terms through a quiz that’s fun for the whole family. It’s also the part of the show that’s introduced by you when you send in audio of yourself saying, singing, or chittering the words Measure Up into ldtaxonomy at gmail dot com.
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Length of the Frilled Shark
The Frilled Shark has a total length of 6.6 feet (2.01 meters). How many objects fit into the shark’s length (if the object is shorter) or how many sharks fit into the object’s length (if the object is longer)?
a) The length of a deep-sea anglerfish
A humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii), common in deep-sea habitats, measures about 1.5 feet (0.46 meters) in length for a large female, per marine biology data.
b) The length of the Trieste’s observation gondola
The observation gondola of the Trieste, the bathyscaphe that reached the Mariana Trench in 1960, was approximately 10 feet (3.05 meters) long, per oceanographic records.
c) The length of a vampire squid
A vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis), a deep-sea cephalopod, measures about 1 foot (0.3 meters) in body length (excluding arms), per marine biology data.
Question: How many fit into each length comparison?
A) 4.4 deep-sea anglerfish go into the length of a Frilled Shark
B) 2.5 Frilled Sharks go into the length of the Trieste’s observation gondola
C) 3.7 vampire squids go into the length of a Frilled Shark
Weight of the Frilled Shark
The Frilled Shark weighs 200 pounds (90.7 kg). How many objects fit into the shark’s weight (if the object is lighter) or how many sharks fit into the object’s weight (if the object is heavier)?
a) The weight of a deep-sea viperfish
A deep-sea viperfish (Chauliodus sloani), found in similar depths, weighs about 0.5 pounds (0.227 kg) for a large specimen, per marine biology data.
b) The weight of the Alvin submersible’s pressure sphere
The pressure sphere of the DSV Alvin, a deep-sea submersible used in the 1970s–1980s, weighed approximately 2,000 pounds (907 kg), per oceanographic records.
c) The weight of a giant isopod
A giant isopod (Bathynomus giganteus), a deep-sea crustacean, weighs about 3 pounds (1.36 kg) for a large adult, per marine biology data.
Question: How many fit into each weight comparison?
A) 389.6 deep-sea viperfish go into the weight of a Frilled Shark
B) 10.0 Frilled Sharks go into the weight of the Alvin submersible’s pressure sphere
C) 61.7 giant isopods go into the weight of a Frilled Shark
Fast Facts about the Frilled Shark
- Range: Patchy haunts across the Atlantic and Pacific, from chilly Norwegian fjords down to Chilean coasts, Japanese bays to Californian kelp forests—basically anywhere the ocean gets deep.
- Habitat: Deep-water lurker on continental shelves and slopes, chilling 400 to 4,200 feet down in cool, upwelling hotspots where the food’s decent but the rent’s eternal darkness.
- Mating behavior: Ovoviviparous with a gestation that drags on for up to 3.5 years, popping out 2 to 15 squirmy pups at a time, year-round since seasons are for surface-dwellers.
- Diet: Squid squad (60% of the menu, beaks and all), plus pint-sized sharks and bony fish for variety; they’ll opportunistically snag floating bodies from the surface as well.
- Hunting behavior: Ambush artist—coils that tail against a rock, then eel-lunges forward to slurp prey whole into those expandable jaws.
- Lifespan: Hangs around for about 25 years.
- Social behavior: Lone wolves, mostly solo operators who only bunch up at seamount mating parties—30-plus showed up once off the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
- Predators: Bigger, meaner sharks see ’em as a scaly snack, though good luck catching something this slippery and antisocial.
Major Fact: Trident Bite
It’s a snake eel shark with 300 trident-shaped teeth…
Structure and Appearance:
The frilled shark has approximately 300 teeth arranged in 25–27 rows in both the upper and lower jaws, with each row containing multiple teeth.
Each tooth is trident-shaped, featuring three sharp, needle-like cusps (a central main cusp flanked by two smaller ones). This gives them a forked, claw-like appearance.
Teeth are small but numerous, with each tooth measuring about 0.5–1 cm in length. The trident design maximizes grip and tearing efficiency.
The teeth are smooth, enamel-covered, and slightly curved backward, ideal for hooking and holding onto slippery, soft-bodied prey.
Function:
Designed for grasping rather than slicing, the teeth are perfect for capturing soft, gelatinous prey like squid and octopus, which dominate the frilled shark’s diet.
The backward curve ensures prey cannot easily escape once caught, as the teeth anchor into flesh.
The multiple rows allow for continuous replacement; as front teeth wear out or break, new ones move forward, ensuring the shark always has functional teeth.
Unique Characteristics:
Unlike many modern sharks with serrated or triangular teeth for cutting, the frilled shark’s teeth reflect its primitive lineage, resembling those of ancient vertebrates.
The teeth’s trident shape is rare among sharks, shared only with its close relative, the southern African frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus africana).
The arrangement in dense, overlapping rows creates a “cage-like” effect in the mouth, enhancing prey retention.
Ending
So munch on some squid, keep an eye out for bigger sharks, and fill your mouth with spiky toothbrushes here in LDT.