Color Vision for Ancient Sharks

On a "cool science scale" we'll give this latest shark discovery a 9.9 up from a 7.5 because this story involves Callorhinchus milii:

PRIMITIVE deep-sea fish may have viewed the world much as we do. The elephant shark, which evolved about 450 million years ago, is the oldest vertebrate to have "the colour vision system we know as humans", says David Hunt at University College London.

Until now, ancestors of modern sharks from 374 million years ago were the oldest known creatures to have both rods to see in dim light and cones, for bright light.

Now Hunt's team has found that the elephant shark, (Callorhinchus milii), has rod pigments. It also has two copies of the long-wavelength cone pigment gene, a duplication which may have given them trichromatic vision like primates (Genome Research, DOI: 10.1101/gr.084509.108).

Goblin girl on... sharky items!

It's Friday, the sun is shining outside (but it's cold) so I just want to make a "light" blog post today, not talking about threats to sharks.

If some of you have gotten curious about who "Goblin girl" is, you might have found my homepage and seen that I like to buy sharky things. I started to blog about all my things in 2007 and still find new sharky items in boxes and cupboards at home... And sometimes I buy new things. Mainly stuff I can use - not many china figurines make it into my home! The exception is goblin sharks. There I buy EVERYTHING I can find! Sometimes I'm talking artists into making stuff for me, like jewelry.

So, my latest find from Japan is trucks with sharks in tanks. They have either a goblin shark, a megamouth shark, a hammerhead or a great white. They are sold in sets of all four and I can't wait to get them!



More photos on my blog.

If you happen to find something that you think I might like OR if you live in Japan and knows how to get me the goblin shark Animal kaiser cards - drop me a line!

Editors Note: What kid/shark diver would not want that toy? Way cool GG;)