London: A `walking shark` has been discovered by scientists off the coast of Indonesia.
Rather than swim, these slender-bodied sharks can `walk` along the ocean floor by wriggling their bodies and pushing with their pectoral and pelvic fins, the Mirror reported.
The brown spotted fish, called Hemiscyllium halmahera, is a species of bamboo shark that can grow to 27 inches in length and lives on the seabed where it hunts marine invertebrates and small fish.
Biologist Dr Gerald Allen from Conservation International, who discovered two specimens of the shy fish in the Indonesian archipelago of Muluku with his team, said that the new species is clearly differentiated on the basis of colour pattern.
Allen said that its features include a general brown colouration with numerous clusters of mainly 2-3 dark polygonal spots, widely scattered white spots in the matrix between dark clusters.
The study was published in the International Journal of Ichthyology.
ANI
