First hybrid sharks found according to a report in ABC News (Australia) 4 January 2012. Marine biologists studying fish along the east coast of Australia have made the “unprecedented” discovery that common black-tip sharks are interbreeding with Australian black-tip sharks to produce shark hybrids. According to Jennifer Ovenden from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, “It was unprecedented because hybridisation between sharks in the wild has never been reported before in Australia or worldwide.”
The common black-tip shark is found in sub-tropical seas around southern Queensland and northern New South Wales whilst the Australian black-tip, a smaller shark, is usually found in warmer tropical seas. David Welch, a fish researcher at James Cook University, Queensland, Australian explained: “They actually choose a mate. It’s not like a fish where they actually put eggs and sperm into the water and they can potentially mix. Animal species tend to know their own kind, but in this case there seems to be a high prevalence of them interbreeding.”
Editorial Comment: Animals actually do recognise their own kind, which is why cats never mate with dogs, yet dogs and wolves and jackals all can and do interbreed even when introduced for the first time in captivity. So the fact that these sharks are mating with one another also indicates they are the one kind. The difference in body size between the two sharks is only a variation within kind, despite the fact they have been labelled as separate species. The fact that these “hybrids” have not been found before is simply because scientists have not done such detailed studies of sharks before. If you are not looking for something you will not find it. If scientists have not observed something, that does not mean the ‘something’ does not exist.
We predict the more scientists study sharks (and fish in general) the more examples of “hybridisation” they will find between fish that have previously been classified as different species, but are really part of the same kind. We encourage such studies as they will help us to understand which fish are of what kind, and will reinforce the Bible’s teaching that animals were made according to the separate kinds and actually do reproduce after their kind without evolving. (Ref. ichthyology, genetics, reproduction, prediction)
Evidence News 2 February 2012