Cape Town - Yet another unique sea creature has washed up along the coast in Cape Town. Local wildlife photographer Alex Aitkenhead came across a juvenile thresher shark carcass that washed up at Sunset Beach on Tuesday night.
The shark is known to have an unusually large tail – sometimes even as long as the shark itself.
“It’s not often we get to see this remarkable shark, this is a thresher shark, using its long tail to stun its prey and then consume it. I’m not sure why this juvenile washed up on our shores at Sunset Beach,” the photographer said.
Aitkenhead explained that thresher sharks were large lamniform sharks of the Alopiidae family found in all temperate and tropical oceans of the world; the family contains three extant species, within the genus Alopias and classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species with a depleting population.
More information on Shark Sider revealed that these are very athletic sharks known for slaying prey with their huge tails as well as for their special jumping techniques and behaviour called “breaching”, where they jump out of the water and into the air.
“While hunting, they launch themselves with their whole body out of the water and perform wild turns. They love to hunt schools of fish in the open ocean waters and prefer tuna, mackerel, and sometimes go after certain breeds of seabirds,” Shark Sider said.
Deputy mayor and spatial planning and environment Mayco member Eddie Andrews said this was not the first time a thresher shark washed ashore in Cape Town. The last was recorded some years ago in Strand.
“It’s not common for this species to wash ashore in Cape Town, due mainly to the fact that these sharks prefer warm, temperate or tropical waters and are pelagic,” Andrews said.
The shark’s eyes were missing, but Aitkenhead said this was a common occurrence and was purely a case of smaller fish eating the softest part of the body. It just meant that the animal was in the water for quite a long time, probably about a day or two after it died.
Andrews said typically threshers’ predators would include larger sharks, but the absence of any obvious bite wounds in this case suggested this shark died for other reasons. The cause of death remains unknown.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za