DEEP SEA SHARKS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 94, 22 April 1931, Page 16

DEEP SEA SHARKS

STRAYS TO KAIKOURA

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.") CHRISTCHUECH, 21st April. Casts of two deep-sea sharks of considerable interest are to bo placed on exhibition in - the Canterbury Museum. They were obtained in. deep water off Kaiko'ura by Mr. Nilson, of that town. One is new to science, and has been named after Mr. Nilson (Centrophorus Nilsoni^by Mr.-Thompson, who was recently on the staff of the Canterbury Museum. The-other was first described from a specimen taken at a depth of 500 fathoms off Madeira, but it has also been- reported from the Moluccas, in the East, Indies. Its occurrence- off Kaikoma is the firsts record for New Zealand seas. . "

It is remarkable how many of these foreign forms come from Kaikoura. This probabiy is due to the fact that the deep water line approaches close to the shore along that stretch of coast, and the slope of the Kaikoura mountains continues down beneath sea levol. The deep sea sharks are thus in all probability strays into shallower water from, the greater depths in close proximity, the deep water forms in many cases having' an almost world-wide range.