Found, the shark that eats its greens

SCIENTISTS have identified the first species of shark that is not solely carnivorous.

The bonnethead shark, a smaller relative of the hammerhead, has been found to digest vast amounts of seagrass as well as meat.

It had been thought that the tiny sharks did not need the plants or process them properly. But in tests they proved better at digesting vegetable matter than a panda and almost as good as sea turtles.

Sharks had previously been ‘uniformly accepted as carnivores’, according to the researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

They fed five bonnethead sharks a mainly seagrass diet for three weeks. Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, they said: ‘We provide conclu- sive evidence that bonnethead sharks, animals previously thought to be solely carnivorous, can assimilate nutrients from seagrass.

‘This is the first species of shark ever to be shown to have an omnivorous digestive strategy. Laboratory-fed sharks all gained weight on their seagrass-heavy diet and digested the total organic matter and the fibre in seagrass.’

Averaging 30-48in in length and weighing up to 24lb, bonnetheads are found on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the US.

Paul Cox of the Shark Trust said: ‘Sharks continue to amaze and surprise us. This latest finding highlights the complex threads which tie ecosystems together.’

‘They continue to surprise us’