A new hammerhead shark species has been discovered by University of South Carolina scientists according to information from Earth Sky Friday.
"The biomass of scalloped hammerheads off the coast of the eastern U.S. is less than 10 percent of what it was historically," Joe Quattro, an ichthyologist, and biology professor at the University of South Carolina told Earth Sky. "Here, we're showing that the scalloped hammerheads are actually two things. Since the cryptic species is much rarer than the lewini, God only knows what its population levels have dropped to.
Quattro and his researchers discuss the species in the science journal Zootaxa mentioning that it has not been found before because it is quite similar to the scalloped hammerhead, its counterpart as a way to fend off and stay away from predators.
The team initially printed information about their initial findings in the 2006 edition of the Marine Biology science journal.
Measurements were then done on 54 cryptic or mysterious hammerhead sharks, and 24 scalloped lewini sharks to provide a complete description on the species so the team could confirm their discoveries.
"Outside of South Carolina, we've only seen five tissue samples of the cryptic species. And that's out of three or four hundred specimens," Quattro told Earth Sky.
Scientists then chose to name the hammerhead shark S. gilberti in recognition of Carter Gilbert, who oversaw the Florida Museum of Natural History from 1961 to 1998, and identified an anomalous scalloped hammerhead in 1967 equipped with less than 10 vertebrae compared to the scalloped lewini.
Its presence at the National Museum of Natural History allowed Quattro and his team to further research its different aspects, and declare it resembled a species they could not tell apart from the scallop hammerhead.
The team has already designated various other locations on rivers, estuaries, and South Carolina waters for similar but different species, in order to further research water life.
