There could be many more species of shark and ray than we think according to a new study, which also raises concerns that some species are even more endangered than previously supposed.
The genetic study by Gavin Naylor, a biologist at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and his colleagues took samples from 4,283 specimens of sharks and rays, finding 574 species, of which 79 are potentially new.
And, as the sequencing covered only around half of all the species thought to exist, there could be many more new species out there.
Worryingly, some of the new species may have gone undetected because they are so similar to others that scientists have mistaken them for the same species, so what was assumed to be one population may actually be several smaller populations of different, but similar, species. This means that some endangered species may be even more threatened than previously thought, like the Scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), which the study suggests is actually two separate species.
According to the report in Nature, Naylor is working on a project with the US National Science Foundation to catalogue the diversity of sharks and rays and is also working to assist the International Union for Conservation of Nature to map which species are where in the world.
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