New Species of “Walking” Sharks Found in Australia

Scientists have uncovered four new species of "walking" sharks in Australia. In recent years, researchers have been finding a handful of the species that have seemingly evolved their ability to walk.

A new study published in the journal Marine & Freshwater Research suggests that the sharks could gain some advantages by walking along the seabed rather than swimming.

What Are "Walking" Sharks?

These are not the average sharks that are huge and have a collection of sharp, scary teeth. Rather, walking sharks are three-foot-long sea creatures that live near Australia.

They move using their pectoral fins in the front and pelvic fins in the back. They trudge along the seabed and even atop coral reefs and outside the water during low tide.

Their special ability allows them to wriggle between tide pools and other areas on the reef to hunt for shrimp, crabs, and other small sea creatures.

The walking sharks tend to appear somewhere around the same area, which happens to be in the waters off of Northern Australia.

Since these sharks don't move around like the rest of their kinds, scientists say that species that get separated from larger groups could evolve into developing their own unique traits and abilities.

The Evolution of Walking Sharks

Scientists have known about walking sharks and their ability to "plod" with their fins on dry land for a while. However, in researching the known species, they have discovered four new species that have seemingly developed the ability much more recently.

According to Mark Erdmann, one of the authors of the study, the bottom-dwelling sharks use their pectoral and pelvic fins to "walk" instead of swim. It allows them to gain more access to smaller food sources such as snails, crustaceans, and small fish.

Additionally, they also found that most of these sharks spend their entire lives in the same area where they hatched. The researchers say they don't move farther than a mile out of this radius.

Moreover, scientists say the only way they would get move a significant distance or get across deep water is when tectonic plate shifting occurs.

The authors of the study explain that walking sharks under their observation tends to be in isolated areas. Furthermore, they found that these sharks don't travel very far.

Scientists say they attribute to the rapid development of walking techniques to small groups of sharks moving to a new area. They claim that once they adopt the walking technique, itis then passed on to future generations, as they learn it from birth.

Erdmann explains that speciation happens when individuals of a certain species drift away from their main population. This can happen when they walk, swim, or get carried away on a current to an isolated location.

If the species is lucky enough to survive and breed, evolution will eventually take on the new population using a different direction, which will then lead to a new species.

The researchers say that they aim to study walking sharks further and learn more about their practices. Much is still left unknown about walking sharks and there are still plenty of questions left to be answered about how they live and thrive.