Do you know which animals have survived on our planet since ancient times? These mysterious creatures not only survived various cataclysms, but to this day continue to successfully prolong their lineage. and here is the first of them...

10. Hagfish

Judging by the fossilized remains, Hagfish existed more than three hundred million years ago, which automatically means that they inhabited our planet even before the first dinosaur set foot on it.

These animals are found in deep waters and are sometimes also called eels, which is fundamentally incorrect, since they have nothing to do with eels.

And that's not the whole point: the whole point is that Hagfish isn't even a fish. There are many things associated with this creature interesting facts: For example, having a skull, Hagfish does not have a spinal cord, but does have a second brain. The open circulatory system has a main heart and three additional ones. They have virtually no vision, since their eyes are covered with skin, and they feed at night. However, they cannot be called completely blind - there are light-sensitive cells around the Hagfish cloaca. Hagfish is a pronounced predator, feeding on weakened animals falling to the seabed, into whose bodies it bites, eating out the entrails and muscles, using its powerful tongue with horny teeth. Sometimes they feed on worms.

Hagfish are a family of about 15 species. Fish are distributed in temperate and subtropical waters of the World Ocean.

Due to the fact that Hagfish is covered with a huge amount of unique type of mucus, no fish living in the same Hagfish biotope is able to harm, especially in light of Hagfish’s ability to tie itself in a knot. In other words, whether other marine life likes it or not, natural enemies Hagfish on the seabed do not. It lives in tropical and temperate waters of the world's oceans. Hagfish is part of the jawless family and is considered a living fossil. For the entire subphylum of vertebrates, this strange animal is considered basal. Hagfish has a fairly large body length - up to seventy centimeters. It is distinguished by its survivability and can live for a long time without water, go hungry and remain alive even despite receiving serious injuries.

9. Lancetfish

The origin of this natural wonder is clearly prehistoric. Its more official name is Big-Headed Alepisaurus. It looks like a fierce predator armed with sharp teeth and equipped with a sail on its back that surprisingly resembles the back of a dinosaur. However, this is only an apparent similarity. In fact, this “sail” is just an enlarged dorsal fin. Despite this, even the scientific name is similar to the names of giant lizards (Akepisaurus ferox).

The literal translation of the name Lancetfish means large-scale lizard.

This animal reaches two meters in length and sometimes even more, and the alepisaurus weighs up to nine kilograms. It has been seen in tropical and subtropical waters in all oceans.

During migrations, adult individuals can reach temperate and even subarctic waters, swimming even to the areas of Greenland, Iceland, Kamchatka and the Bering and Okhotsk Seas. It can live at a depth of up to two kilometers. Unfortunately, alepisaurs have not been studied enough, but it is known that individuals that have not reached sexual maturity are hermaphrodites. Regarding adult individuals, there is currently no reliable information about their functional hermaphroditism.

8. Arowana

Arowana refers to such prehistoric sea ​​life like Osteoglossids. This type of sea creature lived back in the Jurassic period. Currently, fish of this species have been found in Australia, Asia, Africa and the Amazon. IN Lately Arowana began to be captured and preserved as aquarium inhabitants. This fish is an extremely greedy and voracious predator that devours any small animals, which include even the bats and birds, which Arowana manages to catch in flight. This ability is explained by the fact that Arowana can jump out of the water to a height of about two meters. In China, this fish is called the “dragon fish” because of its external resemblance to this character from Chinese mythology. In China they believe that good luck awaits the person who encounters this fish.

7. Frilled Shark

This sea predator is one of the most ancient primitive sharks that have survived to this day. This species appeared back in the Cretaceous period, when dinosaurs ruled on land and beyond. These sharks were discovered quite recently. The length of their bodies reaches two meters. Sexual dimorphism is pronounced and the length of females is greater than the length of males. Frilled Shark lives at great depths and its diet is based on squid. These sharks do not pose any danger to humans and the majority of Frilled Sharks, fortunately, never see a person in their entire lives. Accordingly, these sharks are seen extremely rarely. In most cases, encounters with these fish are limited to scientists or fishermen noticing and recording dying or dead individuals that float to the surface of the ocean.

6. Sturgeon

Another prehistoric species that has survived to this day is the sturgeon. There were sturgeons already in Jurassic period(85-70 million years ago) and are known to the general public for being one of the main sources of black caviar. They are of great interest to science because they represent the subfamily of shovel-nosed animals (Scaphirhynchinae).

Representatives of this species are found, on the one hand, in the territory of Central Asia, and on the other, in North American territories, which gives reason to see in the living sturgeons the remnants of a very widespread species in former times. aquatic fauna. Currently, the sturgeon is under threat of complete extinction and is listed as such in the Red Book. Most major representatives sturgeon can reach a length of six meters in length.

The weight of individual individuals reached one and a half tons. There have been reports of individuals weighing two tons. Despite the fact that their size is approximately the same as that of most white sharks, sturgeons feed on small animals that live on the seabed and do not pose any danger to people. Characteristic feature sturgeon are its spiked scales located in rows along the sides and back, which makes this fish look like a knight. The similarity is enhanced by an elongated conical snout, reminiscent of a spear lowered to attack.

5. Arapaima

It is a close relative of the Arowana mentioned above. As many scientists suggest, the Amazonian Arapaima is the largest freshwater fish on our planet. If you believe the descriptions, the length of this fish can reach four and a half meters, but it is very difficult to verify this statement, since it is currently extremely difficult to find an adult Arapaima. To date, average length this fish is two meters.

Hosted by Arapaima predatory image life, feeding mainly on crustaceans and small fish, although on occasion they can eat everything that can fit in their mouth. Arapaima moves quite slowly and has such interesting ability like the ability to exhale oxygen, just as animals from the cetacean family do. Arapaima does not pose any danger to humans, however, despite this, this unique species, like many others, is on the verge of extinction. These fish appeared in the Miocene period, but the subspecies it belongs to (Osteoglossidae) appeared on Earth much earlier.

4. Sawfish

The first representatives of this species appeared on Earth back in the Miocene period. Surprisingly, the sawfish has managed to survive to this day and can be found in rivers or at the bottom of the sea. Externally, the sawfish looks like a shark and reaches seven meters in length. The main weapon used by this predatory fish, is a sensory organ covered with sensitive pores, thanks to which the sawfish is able to hunt successfully, despite the fact that its eyesight is very poor. In most cases, sawfish are completely safe for humans and do not show any interest in them, but if aggression is shown on their part and they feel threatened, they may attack.

Judging by the fossils found, giant prehistoric sawfish formed the basis of the diet for the largest predatory dinosaur of all times - Spinosaurus. This assumption is made based on the fact that a tooth belonging to this fish was found in the vertebra of a giant sawfish. to a huge dinosaur.

3. Alligator Gar

This huge, scaly carnivore has been found in the southern United States and in eastern and northern Mexico. Despite its name and appearance, Alligator Gar is a fish that lives in fresh waters, although in some cases it can swim into sea ​​waters. Alligator Gar can reach four meters in length and weigh up to two hundred kilograms.

This fish got its name due to its long jaws equipped with two rows of teeth, and its appearance very similar to that of a reptile. The Alligator Gar is an extremely bloodthirsty predator that prefers to ambush its prey when hunting. According to unconfirmed sources, Alligator Gar can attack humans, although no fatal attacks by this fish have been recorded to date. It must be said that Alligator Gar is one of the most ancient species of fish that live on our planet. The origins of Alligator Gar can be traced back to the Cretaceous period and may go back even further.

2. Polypterus Senegalus

When they talk about this inhabitant of the territory African continent fish, it is often mistakenly called a dinosaur. The reason for this confusion is the appearance worthy of a large reptile and the dorsal jagged fin, which only enhances the resemblance to the terrible giant lizards. Currently, Polypterus Senegalus is being caught for subsequent sale to aquarists, among whom keeping these exotic fish in an aquarium has become a fairly popular hobby.

Fortunately, this does not yet pose any threat to their population, since Polypterus senegalus is a fairly agile fish that is not easy to catch. Polypterus Senegalus is a fairly tenacious fish. For example, they are able to live without water for quite long periods of time and the only thing they need for this is for their skin to remain moist. When the skin dries out, the fish dies.

1.Coelacanth

Coelacanth is a real star today scientific world. This is not at all surprising, since it has every right to be considered the most famous species of fish that has inhabited our planet since the prehistoric period and, accordingly, has the right to first place in this list, since for a very long period of time it was believed that representatives of this genus have long been extinct, leaving the waters of our planet. However, in 1938, the coelacanth was rediscovered.

Previously, it was believed that coelacanths became extinct in Cretaceous period together with dinosaurs, but the discovery of a living specimen of this marine inhabitant in South Africa in 1938 turned the ideas of paleontologists upside down. Since then, enough has been discovered a large number of coelacanths both in the western Indian Ocean, centered near the Comoros Islands, and near Indonesia, where the eastern population of coelacanths of a different species lives.

The coelacanth's usual habitat is dark, deep waters, which has allowed them to remain undetected for a long time. Fortunately, the meat of this fish has a terrible taste and smell and is therefore not used as food anywhere. However, despite this, the population of coelacanths is under threat of extinction, since these already few fish are caught for the purpose of sale to collectors and because of the alleged healing properties coelacanth.

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100 great records of wildlife Nepomnyashchiy Nikolai Nikolaevich

THE OLDEST LIVING FISH IS THE COelacanth

Coelacanth, or coelacanth, is the only representative of lobe-finned fish. It was thought to have gone extinct about 70 million years ago. Zoologists first learned about its existence in 1938. Since then, coelacanth has become synonymous with “living fossils.”

But scientists foresaw this. Although, by and large, they had almost no hope. But, as often happens in the world of science, the search that lasted for many decades was finally crowned with success. Incredible but true: 60 years after the first discovery off the coast South Africa, a living relic - a real prehistoric fish that lived in the sea 300 million years ago - was caught in the net of Indonesian fishermen from the island of Sulawesi. It was a coelacanth. The discovery so excited the scientific community and the public that the popular English magazine Nature immediately recognized it as the most outstanding event of the year.

Chance, as always, helped bring him closer.

In 1997, a young married couple appeared in Sulawesi, also united by professional interests. American ichthyologist Mark Erdman and his Indonesian wife, also a marine biologist, decided to spend their honeymoon in the exotic surroundings of the northern part of Sulawesi, which differs from the southern part of this island, perhaps, only in that it lies just above the equator, therefore, in a different hemisphere. While walking one day through the market of the seaside town of Manado, which was full of outlandish variety, the Erdman couple purely by chance noticed an unusual large fish - an exhibition specimen, so to speak, which, accordingly, could not be bought. But it was possible to take a photo. Which the couple did successfully.

However, Mark Erdman, as a specialist, only had to take one look at the curiosity to understand that this was a rare specimen of the legendary coelacanth.

What was surprising was how the coelacanth got to Indonesia. Previously, it was believed that the range of the coelacanth extends no further than the Comoros Islands, which lie in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel - between the northern tip of Madagascar and the eastern coast of Africa. And from Comoros to Sulawesi is a good 10,000 km. Which Mark Erdman knew very well. And then he decided to engage in a private investigation with his wife, fearing for the time being to make his discovery public. Erdman could be completely understood: he wanted to collect more facts.

And the first such fact turned out to be that the coelacanth, which Sulawesi fishermen have long dubbed “raja-laut”, which means “king of the sea”, is not such a rarity in these waters - no, no, and even gets caught in fishing nets. And the fact that it has not yet caught the eye of scientists, who is to blame for this? At least not fishermen.

Be that as it may, a year later - on June 30, 1998 - another specimen of the coelacanth landed in the net of fishermen from Manado, which they set for sharks. One problem: in the cage where he was placed, he lived only for three hours, leaving behind only a memory - in the form of a photograph and description taken by Erdman, a stuffed animal and unanswered questions that added to the treasury of zoological secrets. As it happened more than once - both in 1938 and in 1952.

And then this happened. The first living coelacanth was caught at the mouth of the South African Halumna River. Or - the last representative of lobe-fins, superorder bony fish, which appeared in the Middle Devonian period and - what is remarkable! - gave rise to terrestrial vertebrates. However, coelacanths were thought to have gone extinct 70 million years ago. But it was not there!..

The caught individual reached more than one and a half meters in length and weighed about 60 kg. With the light hand of Professor J.L.-B. Smith, who studied the rare find inside and out, it received its scientific name: Latimeria chalumnae - in honor of the place where it was discovered. The individual had eight fins, and four of them were very reminiscent of the legs of an amphibian at its most early stage development. Smith and other researchers were no less surprised by the respiratory apparatus of the fish, or rather, one of its components - an organ similar to primitive, just forming lungs. Thus, obvious confirmation was obtained of the most important position of evolutionary theory, which states that life came to earth from the sea. And that the so-called lung fish were the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates.

In addition, scientists realized that the coelacanth, caught off the east coast of South Africa, ended up in those waters, in general, by accident. The relict individual, they suggested, was most likely brought there by the Mozambique Current from the north.

The guess was confirmed sixteen years later. In 1952, another living specimen of the coelacanth was caught in the waters of Anjouan Island, part of the Comoros archipelago. Then it turned out that the Comorians have been fishing for this fish since ancient times and call it “gombessa”. And for them it is not at all a curiosity.

This is how the range of the prehistoric lobe-finned fish resurrected from oblivion was established - West Side Indian Ocean, northern entrance to the Mozambique Channel. However, these boundaries, as we already know, turned out to be conditional. Twelve years later, scientists have received factual evidence that the Comorian "Gombessa" was once seen in another ocean, off the coast of a completely different continent.

In 1964, the Belgian naturalist Maurice Steiner bought from a Spanish antiquarian a 17th-century silver medallion depicting a coelacanth, which was reproduced with amazing accuracy. But the most curious thing is that the medallion was not made in the Comoros Islands or even in Europe. Oddly enough, thousands of miles from the African and European shores - in Mexico. And this fact was confirmed for certain - through chemical analysis of silver and the establishment of a very characteristic Spanish-American method of minting and decorating jewelry, which was made precisely in the 17th century, and not just anywhere, but in the New World.

The reality of the Mexican coelacanth was confirmed in 1993. French biologist Roman E in the town of Beloxi (Mississippi), just on the northern coast Gulf of Mexico, acquired three large dried scales, reminiscent of medium-sized flat shells. They seemed to have been extracted from the scaly integument of one of the coelacanths described in detail by Smith in 1938 and 1952.

And then there is the “raja-laut”, very similar to the individuals classified by Smith. The only thing that distinguished the “sea king” from the island of Sulawesi from his Comorian relative was the color. The Sulawesi coelacanth had a distinct brown color with yellowish spots, and not the steel-blue color of the Comorian.

And finally, according to another French cryptozoologist, Michel Raynal, the range of the “raja laut” extends much further than the Sulawesi Sea. In any case, Raynal heard more than once from Philippine fishermen about a mysterious fish, described as very similar to a coelacanth. And this is the Pacific Ocean!

PROJECT "CELAKANT"

Scientists from South Africa have begun large-scale research on the coelacanth (coelacanth). The government has allocated R10 million to the project, called the South African Coelacanth Genome Conservation and Research Programme. The program brings together scientists from Europe, North America and Singapore, including the world-famous Professor Hans Fricke from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. As part of scientific and technical cooperation, Germany provided South Africa with a custom-built two-person submersible, Iago.

Sodwana Bay was chosen for research. The fish was first discovered here in November 2000, and then again on March 31, 2002. Latest event ended tragically - as a result of too rapid ascent from a depth of 100 m, cameraman D. Harding died.

Scientists are faced with the task of clarifying the habitat and living conditions of the population living in the bay, and trying to equip the fish with signaling devices to monitor their movements. "Iago" has already proven its excellent qualities. Fricke and his assistant Jürgen Schauer managed to discover the coelacanth on the first dive, within 4 hours. Moreover, it turned out to be the same individual that divers saw in 2000. This was evidenced by the location of the spots on the fish's body. Like a person's fingerprint, it is unique to each individual. Three days later it took place new meeting with an old acquaintance and 6 of his fellow tribesmen in an underwater cave at a depth of 113 m. “Coelacanths are very curious; Several swam out of the cave to examine the Iago, the participants in the voyage reported. “This seems strange because they usually hide in caves during the day and only leave them at night in search of food.”

Coelacanth: 3D COMPUTER MODEL

Scientists from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, together with specialists from Yokogawa Medical Instruments, have created the world's first three-dimensional computer model of the skeleton and internal organs coelacanth to explain how the coelacanth managed to survive to this day. The three-dimensional image of the fish, which was caught off the coast of Tanzania, was obtained using a special computer tomograph that can take up to 64 images per second. The coelacanth seemed to be cut into thin - about half a millimeter - layers. As a result, it turned out that the spine of the coelacanth, due to its bare structure, is extremely mobile, and ventral fin, on the contrary, looks more like bone.

Coelacanths are of great interest to specialists studying animal locomotion. IN Paleozoic era The ancestors of coelacanths, relying on their limbs, crawled from fresh water bodies to land. Even when salty sea water became their habitat, coelacanths retained the rudiments of “legs” in the form of paired brush-like fins, which they move in a completely unfishlike manner. It was for its “gait” that the coelacanth received the nickname “Old Quadruped” (a book under that name was published in the USSR in 1962 - this is a translation of a bestseller by the South African ichthyologist J.L.-B. Smith).

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From the book 100 Great Wildlife Records author Nepomnyashchiy Nikolai Nikolaevich

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Which fish is the deepest? The deepest-sea vertebrate is the bug Bassogigas profundissimus. In 1970 it was recovered from depth 8299

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THE MOST DANGEROUS FRESHWATER FISH IS PIRANHA These fish have long had a bad reputation. They are greedy for blood, their appetite is insatiable; a school of piranhas is ready to gnaw the whole carcass of a pig or sheep, deftly tearing the meat from the bones. However, not all piranhas are scary, as fans “paint” them

Sakhalin sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris)

The oldest living fish are cartilaginous fish. They have a cartilaginous, often calcified skeleton, covered with tooth-like, or placoid, scales.* They lack a swim bladder. Appearing on our planet at the end of the Devonian period, cartilaginous fish initially took a dominant position, then many groups of these fish became extinct, but at present more than 700 species are known. For the most part These are well-known sharks and rays.

Sharks are grouped into 20 families, which include 350 species of fish, the gill slits of which are located on the sides of the body. Most sharks are active predators, although there are species that feed on plankton. The size range of sharks is unusually wide: from 15–40 cm, like spiny sharks and mustelids, to 15–20 m, like the world’s largest fish, the whale shark. Of course, in a home pond you can only keep the smallest sharks, which, by the way, even breed in captivity, and it is hardly possible to imagine anything more exotic in an apartment than a “domestic” shark.

Rays, unlike sharks, have gill openings only on the ventral side of the body. More than 300 species are known, grouped into 16 families. The size of these predominantly bottom-dwelling fish, that is, those that live at the very bottom, ranges from a few centimeters to 7 meters, and their weight reaches 2.5 tons. And the Black Sea sea cat, and the giant sea devil - manta ray, and the famous sawfish - are all stingrays. The last one against all odds chilling According to the stories, it is not dangerous to humans, but uses its terrible saw to get food by digging in the mud. Among bony fishes, the most ancient representatives are the lobe-finned fish, which unite only 6 species of lungfish: 300–325 million years ago, lungfish widely inhabited the fresh, brackish and sea waters of the planet.

Stingray (Dasyatis pastinaca)

African representatives of lungfish - protopters - have paired lungs and are able to exist in completely dry bodies of water. Up to nine months these amazing fish are carried out in a kind of cocoon in the ground, where, while hibernating, they completely switch to breathing atmospheric air.

Siberian sturgeon (Acipenser baeri)	Russian sturgeon (Acipenser guldenstadti)

The study of the most interesting biochemical processes that allow fish to live in such unusual conditions for such a long time may have practical significance in astronautics, will help reveal the secrets of lethargic sleep and other mysteries of nature. The oldest bony fish include ray-finned fish, which also appeared in the Devonian period. They include the ancient ganoids, currently numbering only 45 species. Ganoid fish are distinguished by their peculiar diamond-shaped scales. The culmination of their development was the end of the Permian - the beginning of the Triassic period, 250–180 million years ago. The ganoids include modern sturgeons and many-feathered sturgeons. And if the remains of fossil sturgeons have been known since the Lower Jurassic time and are distributed only in the northern hemisphere, then the fossil ancestors of the polypiniformes have not been found, and they themselves represent a paleontological mystery.

Kaluga (Huso dauricus)

Sturgeon are the pride of our rivers; they live well and for a long time in aquariums, but for amateur reservoirs they are, of course, too big, and they can only be kept in at a young age, feeding bloodworms, chopped fish, meat.

Beluga (Huso huso) – left, Polypterus palmas – right

In the order of multi-feathers there is only one family - multi-feathers, numbering only 10 species of multi-feathers and 1 species of calamoikhts. The swim bladder in multi-feathered fish also serves for atmospheric respiration. If these fish are not given the opportunity to breathe air for more than two or three hours, the fish die, in ordinary language, as if drowning. Interestingly, wrapped in wet cloth, they live without water much longer than in water, but without access to air. Due to the fact that multi-feathered fish mature very late, their reproduction in aquariums has not yet been mastered, although these fish are undemanding and live a long time. Multifeather larvae have pronounced external gills (like tadpoles), which disappear over time. Most ancient fish are long-lived, both in nature and in aquariums. Ten years is a period of youth and even “childhood” for many of them.

Calamoichthys calabaricus

Currently, bony fish are the most common on our planet. They achieved extraordinary diversity 135–70 million years ago and maintain it to this day, representing more than 95 percent of the species composition of the ichthyofauna. Taking into account the specifics of freshwater and marine aquariums, they will be discussed briefly in the following chapters.

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Who are they and where are they from?

The shark is one of the oldest inhabitants of the world's oceans. The first sharks appeared in the Paleozoic era, 350-320 million years ago, and similar modern ones - 150 million years ago. Together with stingrays, they also have the biological name “selachia”, and belong to the group cartilaginous fish. Unlike most fish, their skeleton has no bone tissue at all, but the body is covered with scaly scales, the tissue of which is identical in structure to tooth tissue. These and other features allow us to consider them the most primitive of the modern existing fish. However, over millions of years they have adapted to life perfectly. Again, the characteristics of teeth, motor, nervous system and sensory organs completely equate them in level of organization with the most progressive bony fish, and in some places they provide advantages.

In total, about 350 species of sharks are known. Most belong to the so-called true predators, individual species(interestingly, the largest ones), such as giant, whale and largemouth, feed on plankton.

They...

The bad reputation of sharks is as old as knowing them. There is still no certainty on this issue. Sometimes both children and scuba divers swim and swim close to sharks - and nothing bad happens. And other times, sharks grab swimmers on crowded beaches, in shallow water, where a person is waist-deep and where nothing like this has ever happened before.

The last two years brought rich prey to the sharks World War. As a result, even staff officers realized how dangerous sharks were to soldiers, sailors and pilots in distress in the tropics. And at the beginning of the war, in the “Manual for Survivors of a Shipwreck”, published in the USA, it was written about sharks like this: “they are slow, cowardly and can be frightened by slaps in the water”... Probably, similar recommendations can be encountered even now. But this is what they led to, using the example of the above-mentioned sailors:

“The transport Nova Scotia was sunk off the coast of Southeast Africa, killing a thousand people. There were many corpses floating around in life jackets - and all the bodies were without legs”...

On this moment It is believed that there are three main reasons for shark attacks:

1. Blood in the water.
2. Injured or struggling fish on the hook.
3. The swimmer's inept floundering and his fear of the shark.

Statistics have shown: in most cases, sharks attack people swimming, walking through the water, or standing in it, when their feet are in the water and their heads and shoulders are above it. Therefore, for scuba divers, the most dangerous moment when meeting a shark is leaving the water and appearing on the surface.

If we exclude shipwrecks, then two thirds of all recorded shark attacks are committed in shallow waters, at a depth of no more than one and a half meters, a hundred or so meters from the shore, mainly in the tropics and subtropics, where the water temperature is at least 18 degrees. But there are many exceptions here: there have been cases of death from sharks in very cool water (12 degrees). But in general it has been established: when the water is colder than 15 degrees, the most dangerous sharks lose their appetite, are lethargic, and, fortunately for them, two-legged “game” is no longer attracted to them.

...and we them

Possibilities of using a shark as commercial fish very diverse. The meat of most species of these fish is edible, nutritious and has long been consumed in many countries of Europe and Asia. The liver of sharks is also of great value - its weight in a number of species ranges from 5 to 30% of the total body weight. Shark liver contains 40-70% fat, rich in vitamin A. In the late 60s. a fat-like substance was discovered in the liver of some sharks, which significantly increased the body's resistance to oncological diseases. They also hunted sharks in Russia - in 1862, in the Kola Bay, Russian Pomors caught 5 thousand pounds of polar shark liver.

Gelatin and glue have long been produced from the cartilaginous skeleton of sharks on an industrial scale.

Shark skin (shagreen) is used for a wide variety of purposes - it is used to make haberdashery goods and shoes, and is used as an abrasive material when sanding valuable types of wood, as well as when processing felt. Shark skin has extraordinary tensile strength, withstanding forces of up to 500 kg/cm 2, while cowhide - only 300 kg/cm 2.

An equally valuable part of a shark’s body is its fins. Typically their mass ranges from 1.7 to 4% total weight fish. All fins longer than 15 cm, with the exception of the caudal one, processed accordingly, are used to prepare a delicious soup. Boiled and peeled fins are canned, and the resulting canned food is also used to make soups. The main consumer of fins and the above-mentioned soup is China, which causes a noticeable decrease in the number of sharks in last years.

When fishing for sharks, almost all fishing gear that currently exists is used - their choice depends on the species composition of sharks, the bottom topography in the fishing area and other factors. Large sharks are caught on longlines, less often harpooned, and small species are caught with trawls and nets.

Recently, there has been a significant decrease in shark catches - if in 1967-68. About 340 thousand tons of them were mined in all oceans, then by the end of the 90s. this value has more than halved. This is primarily due to a decrease in the number of sharks as a result of their active fishing in previous years. Given the slow rate of shark reproduction, many countries have begun to regulate their fishing.

Katran is almost no longer exotic

And finally, purely pragmatic information. Recently, a number of travel agencies on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus have named shark fishing among their offers! Hunting for the Black Sea shark (katrana) takes place in the territorial waters of Russia, along the Black Sea coast from Cape Panagia to Cape Idokopas at a distance of 12 nautical miles from the coast. The recommended season is from late May to early November, with the peak being in August-September. Fishing time in the open sea is 24 hours. The katran has a spindle-shaped body, sometimes up to 2 meters in length, ending in a multi-lobed tail. The snout is pointed, the mouth is transverse, in front of the two dorsal fins there are sharp spines covered with poisonous mucus. Brown skin with white spots on the sides is covered with diamond-shaped scales with sharp spines. The belly is white. There is no swim bladder. Sharks are heavier than water, and therefore movement is their lifelong destiny. They stay in the water as long as they move or at least move their tail, otherwise they drown. And high speed of movement is also a significant factor in their well-being. Only while moving do sharks get enough oxygen into their body through their gills. Otherwise they may suffocate.

Amateur fishing black sea shark is gradually gaining more and more popularity. They catch it from a small vessel anchored or drifting. In both cases, they use bait from finely chopped fish - this is necessary so that the odorous trail spread by the bait is continuous.

As a rule, they are caught with several rods of the 15-24 kg class, equipped with powerful multiplier reels. The cost of such entertainment is around $1000.

Peter Plyukhin

When preparing the material we used:

1. "Shadows in the sea. The sharks, skates and rays" by Harold W. McCormic and Tom Allen with Captain William E. Young
2. V.V. Zdanovich “Fishing and use of sharks”

Earth - amazing planet. There is a countless variety of life forms on it, both relatively recent and very ancient. Here is a list of the oldest living things on Earth that will definitely make you feel young.

10. Martialis heureka

Age: 100-120 million years

This rare Amazonian animal has been dubbed the "ant from Mars" because it looks and behaves completely differently than any other species of ant. This is one of the oldest animals on Earth, according to various estimates, it appeared from 100 to 120 million years ago.

Martialis heureka live in the soil and do not have eyes, but nature has endowed them with numerous hair-like projections on the body. They help these strange ants sense vibrations and pressure changes in the surrounding soil.

9. Frilled Shark

Age: 150 million years

One of the oldest living members of the shark family. In 2007, a frilled shark was caught near Tokyo, which is very strange, because usually these predators live at a depth of 600-1000 meters. Scientists assumed that the female was sick, which is why she rose to the surface. The caught shark, despite careful care, lived only 2 days.

Special chemical and physiological adaptations allow the frilled shark, which is more like a snake or an eel, to survive at depths where not only humans, but also many marine inhabitants have no access.

8. Shchitni

Age: 200 million years

Perhaps one of the distant great-great-great (and many, many more “great-great”) great-grandfathers of these freshwater crustaceans saw a living dinosaur with his own eyes. Or the only continent at that time - Pangea.

The scutum is a very small animal, 2 to 4 millimeters long, that can survive even in the harshest geological conditions. Shield eggs can lie dormant for several years until conditions are right for hatching. And even the cannibalism inherent in shield insects could not destroy this species.

7. Sturgeon

Age: 200 million years

These largest freshwater fish are found in North America and Eurasia and are one of the oldest species of animals belonging to the class of bony fishes.

However, due to the production of expensive black caviar, which has an exquisite taste, sturgeon fish are under threat of destruction. Over 15 years, the number of sturgeon fish in the Caspian Sea alone has decreased by 38.5 times

6. Coelacanth

Age - 360-400 million years

This ancient fish is one of the rarest and most endangered fish in the world. For a very long time, the coelacanth was thought to be an extinct species, but in recent years these fish have been discovered in the Indian Ocean.

Giant coelacanths grow up to 190 cm in length and live at a depth of about 100 meters. They have electrosensory organs that help detect the presence of prey, and the structure of the lobed fins is unique and not found in any other modern fish.

5. Horseshoe crab

Age - 230-450 million years

This strange crab, looking more like a facehugger from Aliens when turned upside down, was a contemporary of the most ancient dinosaurs. Despite its name, the horseshoe crab (aka horseshoe crab) is not a crab, but an arachnid. Its closest relatives were trilobites.

The body of the horseshoe crab reaches 60 cm in length and consists of two sections: the cephalothorax and abdomen. Both parts of the back are protected by a powerful shell, greenish-gray in color. Excellent camouflage against the background of silt. And on the tail needle there are spiny protrusions that help the horseshoe crab balance in the water during strong currents. The tail is also needed to “plow” the seabed in search of food and as a lever if the horseshoe crab suddenly capsizes. Alas, it does not always work.

This amazing creature swims funny - belly up, using its own shell as a boat.

4. Nautilus

Age - 235-500 million years

One of the last representatives of a very old group of mollusks. According to various estimates, this cephalopod appeared on Earth from 500 to 235 million years ago and is older than many species of dinosaurs. Thus, the nautilus is rightfully called a living fossil.

Its beautiful spiral shell could probably arouse the envy of modern cephalopods, deprived of such a luxurious shelter. Fortunately, this feeling is unfamiliar to them.

About 90 small tentacles, arranged in a circle around the mouth, help the nautilus to catch prey and repel attacks from enemies.

3. Medusa

Age - 505-550 million years

It is the most primitive aquatic animal (after the second most ancient animals on Earth). A jellyfish never has a headache, because it has neither a brain nor a nervous system, but it does have primitive digestive and sensory organs.

90% of a jellyfish's body is made up of water, giving it a clear, jelly-like appearance. But don’t be fooled by its apparent harmlessness. Many types of jellyfish are poisonous. And the most dangerous of them is the box jellyfish. Its venom can kill an adult human and many large animals almost as quickly as. Moreover, the victim dies within 2 to 15 minutes from severe painful shock or cardiac arrest. The box jellyfish is also known as one of the most transparent animals on planet Earth.

2. Sponges

Age - 580 million years

Who lives at the bottom of the ocean? These are sponges - one of the most primitive animals that are similar to plants.

They are nothing more than an aggregation of cells and have no internal organs or body parts. Sponges live in sea and fresh water. Some of the most known species sponges are corals. There are about 8 thousand species of sponges in the world. So SpongeBob, the famous cartoon character, has a huge number of living relatives with a very ancient pedigree.

1. Cyanobacteria

Age: 3.5 billion years

You've never seen this tiny bacterium, but it's one of the top 10 living organisms that have existed the longest on Earth. And it is precisely this that is one of the reasons why life on our planet became possible. Cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are probably the first living organism to appear on Earth. It is a photosynthetic microorganism that lives in large colonies and produces oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis. Thanks to their activities, according to scientists, an “oxygen catastrophe” began - a change in the composition earth's atmosphere. This process began about 2.4 billion years ago and caused the restructuring of the biosphere and the global Huronian glaciation.

Today, cyanobacteria are one of the main sources of oxygen in the world. And thus support the existence of all other oxygen-breathing life forms.

The world's oldest animals that are still extant when most of their counterparts are long extinct are called living fossils. Studying these animals gives scientists more information about the evolution and successful survival strategies used in the animal kingdom.