Strange Denizens of the Deep

Most fearsome of all sharks in appearance is Isistius braziliensis, found in the tropical Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. It is a wine-brown colored creature with sharp teeth set in 20 rows which glow at night with an unearthly light.

“When the specimen, taken at night, was removed into a dark apartment it afforded a very extraordinary spectacle,” relates naturalist F. D. Bennett. “The entire inferior surface of the body and head emitted a vivid, greenish phosphorescent gleam, imparting to the creature, by its own light, a truly ghastly and terrible appearance. The luminous effect was constant and not perceptibly increased by agitation or friction.

“When the shark expired, which was not until it had been out of the water more than three hours, the luminous appearance faded entirely from the abdomen and more gradually from other parts, lingering longest around the jaws and on the fins. The only part of the under surface of the animal which was free from the luminosity was the black collar around the throat.”

One of the sea’s strangest denizens is the bramble shark. It is a shark of medium size whose body is almost completely covered with short, sharp spines. This fantastic creature apparently is widely distributed through the Atlantic and Pacific, but it is not likely to come into the hands of collectors. Its general flabbiness stamps it as a deep water animal and the anomalous position of its fins indicates that it is a weak swimmer. Its spiny armament obviously is designed for protection.

Entirely harmless, it is probable, are the giant “basking sharks”, which sometimes reach a length of forty feet. When encountered they rarely, if ever, try to defend themselves but attempt to escape by swimming slowly away. Stories that this monster dives when harpooned and sometimes will drag a small boat with its crew to the bottom now are discredited. Although it reigns as a monster among sharks it is not actually as dangerous as the common dogfish shark.

Perhaps the most dangerous are the so-called “carchaodons”, found in most warm seas although nowhere in abundance. They are among the most powerful and voracious of fishes, but still far less frightful than their fossil ancestors. The latter were the largest of all fishes; they were probably twice the length of the largest basking or whale sharks. Some were more than 88 feet long.