Monday, July 12, 2010

Deepwater Shark Diets Include Other Sharks

Deepwater sharks eat everything from commercial fishing vessel discards to other sharks.
Scavenging human discards can both benefit and hurt sharks, since some may become entangled in nets.One of the most extensive studies on the diets of deepwater sharks reveals these toothy animals may eat everything from discards tossed off commercial fishing vessels to other sharks.

The study, published in the journal Deep Sea Research, is the first such major investigation to utilize DNA sequencing and the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD) to identify prey found in the stomachs of deepwater sharks. Shark edibles are usually too digested or fragmented, but collected DNA can be matched to animals recorded in the database.

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