Scientists have discovered a brand new species of hammerhead shark off the coast of South Carolina.
A team of researchers from the University of South Carolina found the new shark, which they've called the Carolina Hammerhead, and detailed their discovery in article in the latest Zootaxa.
Team leader Joe Quattro said his team didn't set out to discover a new species, never mind one that lives solely in saltwater.
"South Carolina is a well-known pupping ground for several species of sharks, including the hammerhead," USC said in a statement. "The female hammerhead will birth her young at the ocean-side fringes of the estuary; the pups remain there for a year or so, growing, before moving out to the ocean to complete their life cycle."
The shark was discovered while the team was surveying shark populations off the Carolina coast.
While looking through genetic data from scalloped hammerheads, the team found an anomaly, there were two different genetic signatures in the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes.
"The biomass of scalloped hammerheads off the coast of the eastern U.S. is less than 10 percent of what it was historically," Quattro said. "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."
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