AFTER being photographed with a larger hole in its dorsal fin, a silky (silky) shark surprised scientists a year later with its massive and inexplicable transformation. The aforementioned shark (Carcharhinus falciformis) was photographed by an underwater photographer and diver for the first time in July 2022 off the coast of Florida. A huge piece of his dorsal fin was missing, that is, almost 20 percent of the fin, exactly where it was marked.
Probably some fisherman caught it by mistake and then removed the tag with a sharp object. When marine biologist Chelsea Black from the University of Miami in the US saw a photo of the butchered fin, she worried whether this creature would even be able to swim well enough to feed itself, writes Science Alert.
However, much to her surprise, the shark was photographed again 332 days later and it looked "too good". About 87 percent of his fins had regenerated and he swam quite solidly and was in good health.
Scientists confused
Scientists do not yet know, given that they only have photographs, whether this healing process is due to new tissue, the growth of scar tissue, or some kind of joining of the area around the wound.
"Prior to this study, there was only one other documented case of dorsal fin regeneration," says Black. Sharks and rays have a seemingly "supernatural" ability to heal wounds, and since they are very difficult to study in the natural environment, experts don't know much about this extremely fast healing process.
Dorsal fin regeneration in a silky shark recorded for the first time
According to a 1978 study, the skin of nanny and leopard sharks can regenerate after just three weeks. In 2017, a great white dogfish with a severely torn dorsal fin was spotted near the coast of Massachusetts in the United States. It was seen again a few years later, and the fin looked as if someone had surgically sewn it on.
This #WhiteSharkWednesday features the ability of sharks to heal. White shark "Crescent" was seen with some serious injuries in 2017 with a split dorsal fin. The research team saw him in 2022 and was able to see that his dorsal fin "zipped" back up! Incredible! pic.twitter.com/oTyRl6GlgI
— Atlantic White Shark Conservancy (@A_WhiteShark) February 8, 2023
Although high rates of wound healing in sharks have been repeatedly reported, complete dorsal fin regeneration has only been officially documented in the cetacean, and now, for the first time, in the silky shark.
The research, titled Resilience in the Depths: First Example of Fin Regeneration in a Silky Shark (Carcharhinus falciformis) following Traumatic Injury, was published in the Journal of Marine Sciences.
Source: Index.hr, 08.01.2024.
