Living and Extinct.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20475, 29 November 1934, Page 8

Living and Extinct.

Nature Notes.

By

James Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.

THE WHITE SHARK is regarded as one of the most formidable fishes, but it seems to prefer the open sea to the neighbourhood of land. It has not been recorded in New Zealand as often as some of its extinct allies, whose fossil teeth have been found in large numbers in railway cuttings and excavations, sometimes far from present coast lines. The thresher, or sea-fox, uncommon in New Zealand waters, is characterised by a long tail, longer than its body, with which it splashes the surface of the water, in order, it is believed, to frighten together small surface fishes on which it feeds. As far as men are concerned, it is believed to be inoffensive. In colours, the most conspicuous New Zealand shark is the carpet shark. Its upper surface and sides are marked with the rich browns, reds and blacks of an expensive carpet. In length it equals an average dog-fish shark, about 3ft. Sharks’ teeth, formerly worn as earornaments by Maoris, in more recent years with broad black ribbons, to which they were attached by sealing wax, seem to have belonged to the blue-pointer shark, the mako, but Maoris use that name for all large sharks. In the Curiosity Shop, Rakaia. there have been found slender, curved teeth, like an asp’s, that belonged to a Tertiary shark. An allied Tertiary shark, whose teeth have been found at Weka Pass and Waipara (Canterbury). Cave Valley (Oamarul and Kaitangata (Otago), was widely distributed in the seas. Its teeth have been found also in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Alabama, South Carolina, Corsica and Victoria. In Cretaceous times, earlier than the Tertiary Period, a shark, now extinct, lived in the waters of New Zealand, Europe, New Jersey. Patagonia. Madagascar and Queensland. In New Zealand it has been reported from only one place, Amuri Bluff. North Canterbury, the richest field for the fossilhunter yet discovered in this Dominion.