WHEN SCOUTING FOR extremely rare species probably the last place you’d think to check would be “the store.”
And yet it was at a store of sorts–a public fish market in Kuwait to be exact–where marine researchers rediscovered the smoothtooth blacktip shark (Carcharhinus leiodon) in 2008. The species was thought to be extinct, or not even a valid species, since no scientists had reported seeing it since the first specimen was found over 100 years ago, Scientific American reports.
Researchers from the Shark Conservation Society found the shark while working on a survey of elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, and skates, which have skeletons of cartilage instead of bone) and looking at the catches at fish markets in Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates between 2008 and 2010. Scientific American reports that Alec Moore, regional vice chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Shark Specialist Group’s Indian Ocean group, spotted the shark.
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