Ocean explorer tracks down terrifying 'alien' sharks that can clone themselves lurking off US shores
By CHRIS MELORE, US DEPUTY SCIENCE EDITOR
An ocean adventurer has tracked down four of the most bizarre sharks living around the US that even experts describe as 'alien creatures.'
Wildlife biologist Forrest Galante said the US is home to one of the most diverse shark populations on Earth. There are over 100 different species living around the country, from tiny lantern sharks to larger predators the size of a bus.
In a new special for Discovery's annual Shark Week airing Wednesday at 10pm ET, the researcher traveled from Southern California to the Gulf Coast, to the Florida Keys and finally to New England in search of the rarest and strangest species on Earth.
His hunt started with the California swell shark, a predator that can inflate itself like a balloon and glows in the dark.
Galante then pursued a bizarre member of the hammerhead family in Louisiana, the bonnethead shark, which is said to be able to clone itself.
In the nearby Florida Keys, the adventurer chased after the nearly extinct small-toothed sawfish, which has a roughly three-foot beak that looks like a motorized chainsaw.
His nationwide alien hunt then took him to Cape Cod, where the basking shark, a gentle giant described as the size of a spaceship, lives quietly for decades.
However, Galante's first stop, in his native Southern California, provided the biggest challenge, locating the elusive swell shark at the bottom of the Pacific.
A California swell shark glows in the dark near Sanata Cruz Island
The Swell shark has eyes like a cat's that allow it to see at night
The swell shark's unique eyes give it night vision and, as its name would suggest, they can swell its body up to twice its normal size to scare off predators.
However, researchers have discovered an even more amazing ability of the swell shark - it glows in the dark.
While some swell sharks have been found at depths of up to 1,500 feet, the species is believed to prefer swimming in shallower waters, meaning humans can actually catch these 'alien' sharks while fishing.
Moreover, while many shark species need to keep moving in order to breathe, the swell shark can sit on the ocean floor and use a technique called buccal pumping to draw water into its mouth and push it over their gills using cheek and throat muscles.
This allows the elusive shark to hide in rocky caves for hours at a time.
After failing to spot the shark near the warm waters outside Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and on a fishing trip to Santa Barbara, Galante headed for California's Channel Islands, an eight-island archipelago where a wealth of different species live, including sharks, seals and humpback whales.
After diving into the water near the largest of the Channel Islands, Santa Cruz Island, Galante almost immediately found an amber-colored pouch about the size of a hand.
'This is the live egg case of a swell shark. Inside here is a living baby swell shark,' Galante explained, noting that the pouches will sit on the ocean floor for between nine and 12 months before hatching.
Galante discovered a swell shark's egg, which looks like a large leather pouch
The California swell shark is harmless to humans and feeds on small fish
Moments later, the explorer found an adult swell shark hiding in a rocky cave along the ocean floor.
Galante pointed out the loose belly skin, which gives the swell shark its ability to grow in size and wedge itself in the rocks to prevent predators from pulling it out and killing it.
'They'll curl into a ball and wedge themselves in with that big, fat, inflatable belly. They're basically the puffer fish of the shark kingdom,' he said.
As Galante and his camera team turned off their lights, the alien-like shark lit up with its bioluminescent ability, glowing on its own in the Pacific waters.
The adventurer noted that scientists believe swell sharks use the protein in their skin to glow, and that the light is a form of communication in areas of the ocean where there is little light.
'It looked like something from another planet. Truly one of the most amazing alien shark species I have ever seen. It was an extraterrestrial dream come true.'
The bonnethead shark is a member of the hammerhead family but looks like a shovel
Pictured: Forrest Galante holds a bonnethead shark. A bonnethead female can clone itself using a process called parthenogenesis
Next, Galante's expedition took him to the protected waters along the Gulf Coast, searching for the bonnethead, a three-foot-long member of the hammerhead shark family.
Unlike the classic variety of this species, this creature has a head shaped like a shovel. The bonnethead is also believed to be the only shark in the world that eats both meat and plants.
Since the endangered bonnethead mainly eats crustaceans, Galante and his camera crew used a Cajun seafood bowl as bait to lure one close to shore along the Louisiana coast.
'These are hands down one of the most alien shark species that we have here in North America.'
The sharks are one of the only known sharks in the entire world to conduct parthenogenesis, a form of asexual reproduction where female sharks can develop an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell without needing sperm from males.
'It would be an exact genetic clone of this beautiful animal. Truly one of North America's weirdest sharks that can clone itself. How bizarrely strange is that?'
The small toothed sawfish is nearly extinct, with one of its last major habitats being the Florida Keys
Pictured: Galante examines the saw-like bill of a sawfish captured and tagged by conservationists
Moving on to the southern tip of Florida, Galante went searching for the nearly extinct small-toothed sawfish, which has seen 95 percent of its global population wiped out - largely by disease and coastal development.
The elusive sawfish, which has a long bill that looks just like a motorized chainsaw, is believed to be living along the Florida Keys, with less than 1,000 remaining.
Teaming with shark experts in the Florida area who tag and release local species, Galante's hunt resulted in researchers actually finding a 13-foot-long small-toothed sawfish that had already been tagged in the past.
'Whenever you capture data on an animal like this is actually more valuable, potentially, than catching one for the first time because that'll tell us what has changed since the last time they caught this creature,' he explained.
'This is a huge win scientifically for an animal that is creeping towards extinction.'
Galante noted that the strange saw-like nose contains tiny, gel-filled sacks with air inside which vibrate. Those vibrations help the shark detect objects in the murky waters near the Florida coast.
'Tell me that's not an alien. It felt like a spaceship with a chainsaw on its face.'
A basking shark measuring nearly 30 feet swims near Cape Cod
Pictured: Galante approaches a basking shark, which is called a filter feeder that consumes plankton
Galante's final search took him to the cold waters of New England to hunt for an 'alien' giant in Cape Cod Bay - an area known for a resurgence of great white sharks.
However, Galante set out in search of the basking shark, a creature that can grow to nearly 30 feet in length - twice the size of a great white.
This enormous creature is a filter feeder, dining on plankton near the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Using a local pilot and a drone from the air, Galante and his team spotted a basking shark near Cape Cod, which was so massive the drone's sensors mistook it for a moving vehicle.
According to Galante, this particular basking shark was likely over 30 years old and was covered in scars, suggesting many difficult migration trips along the US East Coast.
'That shark is one of the most unbelievably alien, bizarre, weird, incredible sharks. A giant filter feeder swimming through like a spaceship.'
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