Researchers for the first time recorded an epaulette shark species from Papua New Guinea "walking" earlier this year.
The Discovery Channel's Shark Week program "Island of the Walking Sharks" included footage of the unusual phenomena. WGN News even posted some on its YouTube Channel.
A shark was caught on camera practically walking on a reef and using its fins to propel itself ahead in Papua New Guinea.
"This is the first time in history one of the Papuan species of epaulettes has been documented walking," conservationist and biologist Forrest Galante reportedly said during the show.
"This is so incredible," Galante added.
How Epaulette Sharks Walk on Land
Epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum) is a species of longtailed carpet shark, family Hemiscylliidae, usually found in shallow and tropical waters off Australia.
Scientists believe that the ability to travel on land for up to an hour helped the epaulette shark species evolve since it allowed them to obtain food where other sharks couldn't.
According to the experts, their ability to live for up to an hour in situations with little oxygen may have just evolved 9 million years ago.
Epaulettes have a length of around 1 meter and are found in shallow coral reef areas where they forage for crabs and other invertebrates. As the water recedes, they will hang around in tidal pools.
Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said the sharks are trapped once "they are done."
"What epaulettes have learned to do is climb up in the reef and plop themselves in the next tide pool," Naylor told Live Science.
"These sharks typically choose to move by using their pectoral and pelvic fins to walk along the seafloor rather than swim as we see in most other shark species," Galante also told People.
Hemiscyllium Learns How to Walk 9 Million Years Ago
Naylor explained that epaulette sharks may carry themselves up to 100 feet (30 meters) across dry land. Additionally, they can live when oxygen is limited, spending up to an hour on land on a single breath. Fin walking is not the only adaption that enables them to do this. Epaulette sharks are also able to flourish in the low-oxygen waters of tidal pools because of this trait.
A 2020 research published in the journal Marine & Freshwater Research, titled "Walking, swimming or hitching a ride? Phylogenetics and biogeography of the walking shark genus Hemiscyllium," mentioned that epaulette sharks likely developed the capacity to walk in the last 9 million years.
That's extraordinarily quick for sharks; to put it in perspective, the Natural History Museum in London estimates that hammerhead sharks, one of the most recent shark species, originated roughly 45 million years ago.
Additionally, according to Naylor, epaulette sharks may be creating new species at a startlingly rapid rate. Due to the sharks' unusual mobility, isolated small groups are common.
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