A large,
female great white shark pregnant with a record 14 pups was accidentally caught
by fishers off the coast of Taiwan and sold at a fish market on Wednesday
(March 20). The enormous mamma was purchased for less than $2,000 by a
Taiwanese taxidermy company, Taiwan
English News reported.
The images
from local news agencies of the great white shark (Carcharodon
carcharias) and the pups that were cut out of her are hard to believe. At more
than 15 feet long (4.7 meters), the shark is bigger than a small car and is
probably not what most fishers want in their nets. The shark's 14 pups look as
though they were nearly fully developed and ready to take on the open ocean but
were stopped short when their mother was killed.
The 14
pups this mamma shark was carrying likely mark a record number for the species,
said David Ebert, a shark scientist and the director of the Pacific Shark
Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in Moss Landing,
California. "It is very rare to catch pregnant white sharks, so at least
they were able to document this with photographs," Ebert told Live Science
in an email.
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