Shocking! Silky Shark Regenerates Torn Fin In A Year

Nature never fails to fascinate us. Recently, in a shocking incident, scientists were surprised to find that a shark which had broken its fin, had grown it back on its own after a year. Generally, very few animals have the capability to regenerate their body parts, but sharks most definitely do not fall under this category. This has left the scientist intrigued. This shocking finding was published in the Journal of Marine Sciences. The incident was observed off the coast of Florida in the US. Scientists found a broken fin of a Silky Shark (Carcharhinus Falciformis) species healed within a year. It is not an easy task to witness such an incident because identifying a shark is quite challenging. In June 2022, scientists had placed a satellite tag on a shark’s dorsal fin to track its migration. A month later, a marine biologist named Chelsea Black from the University of Miami and lead author of the study was informed by a local diver that a shark was tagged and around 20 percent of the whole appendage was missing, which alerted the researchers.

Wion reported that there were speculations that the Silky Shark was caught during fishing or there was human intervention. It is suspected that someone probably tried to remove the tag with a sharp object with the intention of helping the shark. The real reason remains unknown.

The local diver had sent her a snap of the shark where a huge hole of where the tag had been could be seen. She had not expected to see the shark again due to its extensive injuries and also there was now no way to track it. Within a year, the shark was spotted and looked quite healthy. When the oddly-shaped dorsal fin was photographed, it was sent to Chelsea Black for identification and she confirmed it from the tag ID number.

The study observed that while fin repair is quite common in sharks, this particular shark had regained around 87 percent of its fin and was even swimming normally. This is the first time researchers observed that a Silky Shark regrow its dorsal fin and is the second recorded case of a shark regrowing its dorsal fin.