yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

TIL: How Cookiecutter Sharks Eat Is Terrifying (Explained With Cookies) | Today I Learned


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

In the same way you might take a Christmas tree and stick it in dough and have perfect edges, the cookie cutter shark is able to do this with its teeth. A cookie cutter shark is sometimes known as a cigar shark because of the shape of its body. They're deep water species, and they're really creepy looking. They have large eyes, funny shaped snouts, and a mouth with triangulated teeth on the bottom and erect teeth on the top.

While it has an adorable name, it's capable of cutting perfectly cylindrical plugs of flesh out of its victims. Cookie cutter sharks spend the majority of their time at depths below 1,000 meters, so below 3,200 feet in the sea. They're extremely deep water sharks, but the interesting thing is that they come up at night to hunt.

They're successful in feeding at nighttime because they have photophores which emit bioluminescent light that mimic smaller fish. So, animals like dolphins, whales, marlins, and tuna think that these glowing lights on the cookie cutter shark are actually prey. When they come in to bite, thinking that it's a smaller fish, they find themselves in a world of hurt because the cookie cutter shark then turns around, suctions its lips and its top teeth to their body, and then spins its body ejecting a perfectly cylindrical plug of flesh.

The cookie cutter shark is the only parasitic shark in the entire animal kingdom. They are quite small; the males only get up to about 16 inches with females to about 22 inches. So, when they are attacking their prey, they really only take plugs in the way that a parasite would do, and it's quite a characteristic plug shape. In fact, they've even found some of these plugs on the heads of nuclear submarines.

Humans don't encounter them very often because during the daytime, they're generally significantly deeper than human activity. So, unless you're in the deep ocean in the middle of the night, it's probably safe to say you won't be attacked by a cookie cutter shark.

More Articles

View All
Amy Buechler and Michael Seibel on Founder Coaching and Having Hard Conversations
Alright guys, welcome to the podcast. Thanks Frank, how’s it going? Great! Good! Amy, you are a founder coach. I think a lot of people don’t know what coaching actually is, so maybe you could explain it? Yeah, that’s actually a great question because wha…
The Mummy's Curse | Lost Treasures of Egypt
NARRATOR: Maria has spotted the fresh tracks of a snake in the sand, and it could still be hiding somewhere in the tomb. John joins them to lend some support. Good luck. OK, if you’re still in here, I come in peace. Tapping a bit. Maria, don’t tap it, ju…
Meet the World’s First All-Female Team Created to Combat Poaching | Short Film Showcase
The old-school conservationists laughed at us. They said, “It’s never gonna work.” I’m 25 years old and one of the Black Mambas. I’m looking at other Black Mambas and approaching the unit. They’re always very, very shy at the beginning, and then they get …
What Shark Is Attacking Tourists? | SharkFest
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: So what is behind this deadly spate of attacks? According to local news reporter Jerry Sinon, it’s a question on everyone’s mind. There was a lot of rumors in regards to the attacks. Why did it happen? And in two weeks’ time, i…
Christopher Columbus
In the last video, we discussed how the Portuguese began to really expand their exploration around Africa with the invention of the caravel, a fast new ship that could sail into the wind, and how Spain, newly united with Ferdinand and Isabella, completed …
Ancient China | Early Civilizations | World History | Khan Academy
We are now going to go to the east and explore ancient China, and we’re going to do that in the second millennium BCE, where we see some of the first great dynasties of ancient China emerging. So if we go to roughly the 16th century BCE, so that would be …