Porbeagle & Salmon Sharks - The Underrated Great White Relatives

great white sharks as we all know are among the most iconic of not just sharks but of ocean-going animals having a reputation as an apex predator that has led to fear mongering about them that has led to them and other sharks being demonized and this is something that is completely unjust as animals just living their lives and also being key in terms of the health of the ecosystems they live in they are very important to the health of our oceans and so better conserving and understanding them is critical great whites are as just mentioned among the most well-known of their group if not the most wellknown and so are great for advocacy this does however mean that many of their relatives can often times be sidelined and so for this year's shark week I'll be starting us off by aiming to focus on some of their close relatives for this video I'll be covering two of these species being the poor bagle and summon sharks which are both very interesting and have some amazing behavioral and anatomical features that make them truly remarkable and Rel just as much attention as their larger great white relatives starting off these two fish both sit in their own genus of L fell genetically sitting outside of the great wies which are in their own genus of karazon both however been grouped under the broader family of lemonad they appear to have evolved around 65 to 45 million years ago though when the two diverge from each other is a lot more UNC what likely happened is that when the ice caps were forming over the Arctic Ocean during the M Epoch at the earliest around 4 million years ago this then created a barrier in Tims the populations TN de breze and so they therefore had a chance to species por bigles the first species I'll be talking about likely got their name from the combination of porpus and Beagle which appears to be in referen to both their streamlined hydrodynamic bodies as well as to their proficient hunting methods and persistence another is that it is derived from the Cornish word of por which means haror and bugle meaning Shepherds though debate on this as far as I can tell still continues when it comes to their appearance they look remarkably like shrunken down great whites almost looking like a chebi version in some ways with a stockier proportions and this indeed is a valid comparison they do differ from them though in that they have a distinctive white blotch on their dorsal fin something that their relatives don't have as well as a proportionally larger eyes and more sharply pointed snout in terms of their proportions they're the thickest bodied members of their family and this makes it so they have a stiffer swimming style with their tails mainly oscilling while their body remains more rigid this does help them regarding quick burst of speeds when knees though does come at the cost of some maneuverability they also do vary good bits by locality too with the sharks being found in the North Atlantic growing larger than the southern hemisphere counterparts also differing in their coloration in the northern hemisphere the sharks have a white unders sizee with the main dorsal coloration being a dark gray or slicing color which often then extends to the pectoral fins the southern hemisphere sharks however not only continue that dark coloring all the way to under their hairs but also have some more blotches of coloration on their Underside another thing that can only really be seen when rice up close in personal to them is also their three cusp teeth where they have one large M Central cusp which is situated within two smaller ones sizewise they typically reach lengths of about 2 and 1/2 M where in the case of Northern sharks the females are bigger than the males and in the case of the Southern sharks they are both comparable when they're adults they get to weights of about 135 kg though in terms of Maximum sizes a fish C off of K NES Scotland in 1993 weighed a good 230 kg showing that there is a good degree of size range they range widely across the coals and temperate Waters of the North Atlantic and southern hemispheres as mentioned with the relative the sumon sharks taking the place in the North Pacific where they absent they are able to survive well in these cold Waters thanks to the regional endi something which isn't found in too many other fish this conservation of heat through the vascular countercurrent heat exchange system is also found in similarly active animal like chuna and billfish this enables them to maintain a cold body temperature that's around 3 to 8° warmer than the water they're swimming in which is a great help considering how far north and south they range this also helps them regarding their long-distance migrations as they navigate through shallower and steeper Waters they are like the close relatives overo vorus meaning that the embryos develop inside eggs that remain in the mother's body until they're ready to hatch with their gestation taking a good 8 to 9 months which is comparable to our own the female sharks will then typically carry four pups each year with the embryos inside before they're born being known to practice uy where they will Feast on the nonviable eggs that are produced by the mother to keep themselves sustained the pups once born measure about 60 to 80 cm long with them then swimming off to make their own way in life as their parent then also swims off over the course of their life their diet shifts in terms of the proportions of the Food they'll consume with older sharks men leasing a range of Med size fish and juveniles mainly using squid though there are some food items that they'll take up that are a lot more unorthodox from what you'd think they beeing examinations of their stomach contents have tuned up mollusks VAR crustations and aidomes with the one-year-old pigle also having been found to have eaten Crill and po worms por bigle are also some of the few fish known to apparently exhibit play Behavior with animals being seen to roll themselves repeatedly in kelp at the surface of the water as well as others also being seen to intera act with anything on the water with them tossing bumping into or biting natural and artificial objects which included driftwoods and balloon floats with these behaviors seeming to have no other explanation than that they were just getting a kick out of interacting with the objects to pass some time they have also been seen chasing each other around but not in a hostile way as the Sharks and go either their separate ways or continue warning their groups since some are gregarious sometimes being seen in groups as large as 20 individuals strong in terms of the kelp at least this Behavior might also have the alternative purpose of them attempting to feed on animals inhabiting the kelp or also maybe to script the parasites off in some way though both cases could also be true at once shark behavior is after all something that is fairly poorly understood even today so there is still plenty more to understand about them and how intelligent they really are unfortunately for them poor bigles are considered as vulnerable given their populations are severely depleted many of their populations in fact have been reduced by a good 70% of their historic levels with some localities having experienced even steeper declines they have for instance pretty much disappeared entirely from the Mediterranean and is still hunted in many places across Europe with commercial Fisheries in Norway and Canada also still catching them though under specific regulations they are also very vulnerable to becoming bycatch from long line and drift gilets which coupled with their light reproductive maturity at about 13 and only having a few Offspring at a time makes their survival all the harder when they are caught either purposefully or accidentally cause as often as they are this is all the more reason for these animals to be protectors and to help in this we also have to step up our game in terms of understanding them so that we can better appreciate them and the habitats that they live in onto the second species salmon sharks are medium greater black over much of their body having a white Underside which is covered in many darker blotches like the PO bigles mentioned earlier they have comparatively shorter snells and great whites with also having large eyes that help them in locating their prey they also possess a double K on their tail are traits which are shared with their poor beagle relatives but is something otherwise not seen in any other sharks something which further assists them in reducing the turbulence they face underwater they can grow up to 2 and 1/2 m in length and weights of about 220 kg with the females being the larger of the two Sexes there also appears to be a strong sexual segregation in them with far more males being prevalent in the western North Pacific and far more females being presence in the eastern North Pacific if these populations occur because of either some segregation as part of their growth and developments or some kind of genetic stock difference is still yet to be known so there is something where further researchers need is before we can really answer such Mysteries getting into their range they widely distributed in and around the subarctic and temperate North Pacific being found across the Bearing Sea the Sea of Japan as well as around the Gulf of Alaska through to Southern Baja California they are highly migratory too with said migrations being largely dependent on the concentration of available prey species with them either making these massive Journeys alone or in loose groups of about 30 to 40 individuals along the way during the migrations and also when they're not doing so they feed on a big range of animals including Herring sardines Pollock Cod and more the food item that is most notable and the one that gives them their name salmon namely the Pacific seven do appear to be the predominant victims of these sharks pration with there being a good link between the abundance of salmon sharks alongside the catch rates of salmon alongside their migration passs it was noted for example that in 1998 Alaskan summon sharks consumed an estimated 12 through 25% of the total unur run of Pacific summon that were living in Prince William sound which considering that tens of millions of fish pass through here they would be eating a good few million of them and other Studies have found that they suppress their populations and movements somewhat as partial endms like the previously mentioned pagles their efficienc circulatory system allows them to keep their body warmer than the surrounding environments just like them though they can actually do this even better in that they can get their internal body temperatures to be as much as 8 to 16° warmer than the surrounding water which in the case of poor bigals is just 3 through 8° as mentioned earlier this is due to them inhabiting generally colder Waters in their relatives given that the areas they frequent include the aforementioned Alaskan Coast alongside the eastern coast of Russia in terms of their threats the main issue comes down to over fishing both of their prey and of them when they're caught in by catch some fishmen will also kill them given that they have a negative image of them given they can sometimes damage gear and compete for salmon something which the fish can't control given that this is their lifestyle and habitat what also makes it worse is that they have a low fand with them having no more than four or five pups every 2year reproductive cycle which alongside the slow matury rates they cannot replenish their numbers all that quickly knowledge also remains limited on their biology and habits and they are still currently incluses in the commercial by catch tiic the tital allowable catch in Alaskan federal waters at least which means that the by catch of them is legally permissible it's a great shame as these animals like the PO wigle are even more interesting in that they share a lot of the traits found in the common ancestor of lam nids and aodds the latter Group which contains Megalodon with their proportionally large eyes heads and pointy snouts being similar to basal otod doned like Cal lamda and with them being the most basal lamid with these two sharks diverging very early on in lamid evolution supporting this notion and so they are very important for not just understanding modern shark diversity but also their past diversity as well all in all I thank you for watching this video on these animals and that you may have learned something new if you would like to see more from this channel be sure to subscribe if you haven't already and with that I'll see you for the next installments of this year's shark w