Great white shark dissection

January 7, 2009 8:44 AM

Scientists at the Auckland Museum will be performing a necropsy of a great white Shark between 11am and 1pm New Zealand time on Thursday. Though they will be examining the contents of its gut, they will also, among other things, look at its sex organs (female) and jaw. The necropsy will be viewable on the web from 2pm NZ time (when's that?).

Selected trivia from Wikipedia, and elsewhere:

• The only difference between a necropsy and an autopsy is that the word necropsy is more usually applied to animals.
• Though reminiscent of the scene from Jaws, Dreyfuss's character was supposed to be examining a tiger shark.
• Yes those tedious shark shockumentaries weren't lying. Great white sharks can detect traces of blood from 5km away. Apparently they can also detect a half-billionth of a volt in electric fields generated by moving creatures.
• The shark was killed by accident when it became tangled in a gill net. It's against the law in New Zealand to kill a Great White shark deliberately.
• At 3m and 300kg, this shark is nearly as big as some great whites.
• The great white shark is an endothermic poikilotherm.
• Great whites know how to evade dolphin echo location and have varying hunting techniques for a variety of species.
• Most attacks on humans from great whites are thought to be "test bites" as they attempt to establish what we are. Humans' unique knack of getting out of the water explains why many attacks are non-fatal. Some have hypothesised that great whites don't like the taste of humans.

posted by nthdegx (18 comments total)

It's against the law in New Zealand to kill a Great White shark deliberately.

NZ has been infiltrated at the highest levels. CODE RED
posted by DU at 8:47 AM on January 7, 2009 [3 favorites]

The necropsy will be viewable on the web from 2pm NZ time (when's that?).


This fixed world clock is probably more useful.
posted by vacapinta at 8:50 AM on January 7, 2009

Yeah, thaks for that. Feel free to change the link if you like.
posted by nthdegx at 8:54 AM on January 7, 2009

Coool! I dissected a dogfish shark for a science fair once when I was a wee lad. Won second place, probably because my partner and I cut out the sex organs for specific viewing. Good fun. Thanks for the post.

I saw a Great White while diving of the California coast once. It was at the edge of my underwater vision, just a shadow really, moving through the water. It looked like a bullet. With fins. I fled.
posted by elendil71 at 9:01 AM on January 7, 2009

I don't know that I'll be able to follow what's going on without some commentary. Will there be voice-over explanations from a guy who sounds like an Australian holding his nose?
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:06 AM on January 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Shark sex organs! Internet porn has finally come of age!
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:26 AM on January 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, this is cool. Thanks.
posted by gaspode at 9:35 AM on January 7, 2009

Rule 34!
posted by fleetmouse at 10:19 AM on January 7, 2009

I almost posted this yesterday, then realized that I can't watch it this afternoon cuz I gotta be out and about and wouldn't be able to contribute to the discussion... Anyone know if it will be available afterward?
posted by yellowbinder at 10:37 AM on January 7, 2009

I'm thoroughly confused:

can someone give the date and time this will happen in Philadelphia terms?

Also:

At 3m and 300kg, this shark is nearly as big as some great whites.

This is a great white, right?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:34 AM on January 7, 2009

I was about to suggest how the fact it was female might inspire some weird fetish sect to be aroused by the whole thing, but I see have been beaten to the punch.
posted by tehloki at 12:01 PM on January 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Shark sex organs! Internet porn has finally come of age!

Has it come of age or just jumped the...

nevermind
posted by Quonab at 12:26 PM on January 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

According to Mary Roach's excellent Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, it's an autopsy when done to one's own species, a necropsy otherwise.
posted by djb at 12:47 PM on January 7, 2009

I almost posted this yesterday, then realized that I can't watch it this afternoon cuz I gotta be out and about and wouldn't be able to contribute to the discussion... Anyone know if it will be available afterward?

2pm NZ Time is when the webcast will be available (presumably on demand) - the live dissection is only for people actually attending in person
posted by bruzie at 1:58 PM on January 7, 2009

NZ time (when's that?)

GMT+13.
posted by rodgerd at 2:10 PM on January 7, 2009

Except GMT+13 isn't necessarily intuitive to non-Europeans, hence the link in the "when's that?" text.
posted by nthdegx at 3:03 PM on January 7, 2009

Oh. It appears you can watch it live. Here's the streaming link but they're almost finished. Presumably the full video will be up from 2pm NZ time as they reported. They're about to take its jaw off.
posted by nthdegx at 4:03 PM on January 7, 2009

GMT, or UTC if you prefer, is an international standard. Most of the world grasps it quite nicely.
posted by rodgerd at 5:13 PM on January 8, 2009