LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Scientists have documented a new shark, and it's orange.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
What?
DANIEL ARAUZ: I have never seen a nurse shark with that color.
FADEL: Daniel Arauz co-authored a study on the shark, published in the journal Marine Biodiversity. Arauz says the 6-foot long shark was caught by a group of sport fishermen off Costa Rica and released.
ARAUZ: These guys took a bunch of pictures of the shark. You know, they are usually yellowish, grayish, but that was, like, bright orange and was, like, almost, like, golden. It was crazy. And it also had these white eyes.
INSKEEP: Arauz is executive director of the Rescue Center for Endangered Marine Species, which is an NGO based in Costa Rica. He says the color, which was kind of like a goldfish - a really big goldfish - comes from a rare genetic mutation.
ARAUZ: This is a chromatism mutation. It's similar to what you would call albino animals -right? - or melanistic animals. In this case, it is called xanthism, with an X.
INSKEEP: Xanthism in other animals causes the bright yellowish pigmentation in fish and frogs, even some snakes.
FADEL: In this case, Arauz says it's particularly rare.
ARAUZ: This shark actually has both mutations. It has the mutation for albinism, which is why the eyes are all white, and it also has a mutation from xanthism. We have never seen that in a shark before.
FADEL: Nick Whitney, a senior scientist for the New England Aquarium, specializes in nurse shark research.
NICK WHITNEY: It's cool to see. It's incredibly rare. We now know that this can happen. We have really good photo documentation of it.
FADEL: Although he wasn't involved in the study, Whitney thinks the 6-foot long shark seems to be doing swimmingly.
INSKEEP: Ugh.
WHITNEY: As far as the shark is concerned, it probably has no idea that it's yellow. And this one seemed to be a healthy, probably newly mature adult.
INSKEEP: The shark has grown out of the phase when being camouflaged was most important.
WHITNEY: In those early years of life, being yellow like that may have made it stand out more, but it seems to have survived that just fine.
INSKEEP: Now it's kind of too big to mess with.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YELLOW")
COLDPLAY: (Singing) And it was all yellow. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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