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[citation needed] Most shark species have five gill slits on each side, however, some species can have up to six or seven like the sixgill sawshark and sharks in the order Hexanchiformes. [40] As part of their respiratory system, sharks also have an accessory respiratory opening called a spiracle behind their eyes.
The pharyngeal jaws, so-called because they are positioned within the pharynx, are used to further process the food and move it from the mouth to the stomach. [2] [3] Cartilaginous fishes, such as sharks and rays, have one set of oral jaws made mainly of cartilage. They do not have pharyngeal jaws.
The head or skull includes the skull roof (a set of bones covering the brain, eyes and nostrils), the snout (from the eye to the forward-most point of the upper jaw), the operculum or gill cover (absent in sharks and jawless fish), and the cheek, which extends from the eye to the preopercle. The operculum and preopercle may or may not have spines.
Many sharks can contract and dilate their pupils, like humans, something no teleost fish can do. Sharks have eyelids, but they do not blink because the surrounding water cleans their eyes. To protect their eyes some species have nictitating membranes. This membrane covers the eyes while hunting and when the shark is being attacked.
A nostril (or naris / ˈ n ɛər ɪ s /, pl.: nares / ˈ n ɛər iː z /) is either of the two orifices of the nose. They enable the entry and exit of air and other gasses through the nasal cavities. In birds and mammals, they contain branched bones or cartilages called turbinates, whose function is to warm air on inhalation and remove moisture ...
The entire body of a shark is a very efficient eating machine. Each organ has been fine-tuned for hunting and acquiring food.
Some fish have permanently protruding rostrums which evolved from their upper jawbones. Billfish (marlin, swordfish and sailfish) use rostrums (bills) to slash and stun prey. Paddlefish, goblin sharks and hammerhead sharks have rostrums packed with electroreceptors which signal the presence of prey by detecting weak electrical fields.
The shape of the hammerhead shark's head may enhance olfaction by spacing the nostrils further apart. Sharks have keen olfactory senses, located in the short duct (which is not fused, unlike bony fish) between the anterior and posterior nasal openings, with some species able to detect as little as one part per million of blood in seawater. [61]