sharks interbreeding to combat climate change

7 January 2012 20:33:00 AEDT
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Can it be true? Have sharks made a pact to improve themselves through interbreeding to combat climate change? I read this a few days ago and immediately checked the calendar to ensure that one of the greeting card companies hadn't paid to move April Fools Day to January this year. The way the story goes, a group of University biologists have decreed that Australian Black Tip reef shark have interbreed with 'normal' black tipped reef sharks....hmmm. If you get the opportunity to review the difference between these two species below, the first thing you'll take away is that you need a masters degree in marine biology to tell these two sharks apart anyway. Don't get me wrong, if any family of species is going to get their act together in creating a master hybrid then it would be the shark. With 400 million years on the planet they certainly have the track record you'd look for as a survivor but closely related species interbreed in nature all the time, rather than some primordial protest on carbon emissions it's more likely due to an increase in numbers of both species due to fishery protection which ensures that both genres of shark come across each other a little more than they used to. Back in the old days, humans did it to. Modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals until we killed them all, not sure the price of carbon was on the agenda when these first 'pioneers' got down to it. I think if a whale shark interbreed with a great white I would sit up and take notice, a hammerhead bred with a tiger shark would be a formidable obstacle in the lineup also..then if you crossed Godzilla with a giant moth...um I'll stop now.

AUSTRALIAN BLACK TIPPED REEFSHARK

COMMON BLACK TIPPED REEFSHARK

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