We humans have a water-living cousin, we failed to recognize for long! Thanks to scientists for apprising us to our distant cousins – sharks! Yes, we the humans and the sharks share a common ancestor as been recently revealed by our DNA study.
It’s not a single gene, but one shark species’ several genes are found to be nearly identical to those in humans!
Amazingly, it was found that an elephant shark’s genome is much similar to ours to an extent that leads to more in common with it, compared to other species — like teleost (bony skeleton) fishes — nearer to us on the evolutionary tree.
It was exciting for the scientists to find that ‘sets of genes’ on chromosomes, along with actual genetic sequences are highly similar in the elephant shark and human genomes!
Many of the genes compared between the elephant sharks and humans are found to be involved in sperm production. Surprisingly, both the species are found to produce sperm that appears to have receptors on the tip, allowing fusion with a female egg.
Ah! So, meet your distant cousin, especially those who kill them to meet their own greedy ends – yes, you are killing your own cousin!
Hold on for a minute and think about it, before digging that harpoon on their flesh, just to make bleed.
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