Saturday, October 24, 2009

The Greenland Shark


Ok, just one more for today. I want to save some things to write about every now and then so that when nothing's new I won't be a person writing about what they ate. I already know what I ate. I don't need to read it.

The Greenland shark is possibly one of the most awesome things possible. Firstly, it's really the only shark that can live in the cold waters of the arctic circle. It's massive - usually about 8m I believe (24ft to our imperialist friends). It is born with good vision, but after some time a parasite latches onto its eye and begins eating its cornea - leaving it mostly blind. It's skin is toxic, so anything that eats it dies. Except for other Greenland sharks, which can be cannibalistic, and have an immunity to the toxins in the skin. Hmmm, actually apparently it can be eaten if boiled correctly and is a delicacy in Iceland. Sad. Why not just eat Gawd?

Inuits have two legends as to the origin of the Greenland shark;
1 - It's high urea content in the skin (making it poisonous) created the legend that a woman soaked her clothes in urine and went down to the seaside to wash them, she lost the clothes and they formed the shark. (Or the pee-soaked clothes did create the shark and therefore the legend created the high urea content in the skin?)
2 - A young girl was being drowned by her father and he cut off her fingers which became the salmon, walrus, seal, whale and greenland shark.

Either way this truly awesome creature has the legendary origin of piss-stained clothes or child-slaughter. Sorry Greenland sharks.

Truly Fascinated Ethan..

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