{"id":17857,"date":"2023-12-07T07:59:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T02:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=17857"},"modified":"2025-04-05T07:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-05T01:36:10","slug":"megamouth-shark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/megamouth-shark\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Megamouth Shark?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>About Megamouth Shark<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>It is an\u00a0extremely rare and unusual\u00a0species of deep-water shark.<\/li>\n<li>Scientific Name:\u00a0<i>Megachasma pelagios.<\/i><\/li>\n<li>Distribution:\n<ul>\n<li>Their range is believed to span the region between\u00a0latitudes 40\u00b0N and 40\u00b0S.<\/li>\n<li>These sharks inhabit the\u00a0Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Habitat: They are found in\u00a0deep, warm oceanic water.<\/li>\n<li>This species has\u00a0only been observed in the wild a\u00a0few times, and less than 60 individuals\u00a0are known by scientists\u00a0to have ever been captured or observed.<\/li>\n<li>Features:\n<ul>\n<li>It is a\u00a0large species, reaching weights of 2700 pounds (1215 kg).<\/li>\n<li>They are typically 425-515 cm long. Females are larger than males.<\/li>\n<li>They are easily\u00a0recognised by their huge, soft head\u00a0and\u00a0large mouth, which is positioned at the anterior margin of the head.<\/li>\n<li>The colour varies from\u00a0grey to blueish-black above and is\u00a0pale grey below. The tips of most of the\u00a0fins are usually white.<\/li>\n<li>They have a\u00a0series of small, hooked teeth along their top and bottom jaws.<\/li>\n<li>They are\u00a0filter feeders, and they swim with their mouths constantly wide open in order to filter out their preferred planktonic prey.<\/li>\n<li>The inside of their\u00a0mouths is covered with light-producing organs that may be used to\u00a0attract pelagic crustaceans and other potential prey.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Conservation Status:\n<ul>\n<li>IUCN Red List: Least Concern<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1) What are filter feeders?<\/h3>\n<p>A filter feeder, also known as a suspension feeder, is any animal that obtains food by filtering water for nutritious particles. Examples of a filter feeder include mysids, flamingos, clams, krill, sponges and whale sharks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wionews.com\/science\/in-a-first-pregnant-megamouth-shark-spotted-on-philippines-beach-sparks-major-marine-discovery-666838\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>In a first, pregnant megamouth shark spotted on Philippines beach sparks major marine discovery<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Megamouth Shark is an extremely rare and unusual species of deep-water shark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":17858,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}