Chapter 128 Encountering a Living Fossil
Speaking of it, the woman who fell into the water was quite pitiful. Here, during the days of every new moon, the water currents from the eastern and western sea basins would flow into the Strait of Messina, causing a lot of turbulence here. The woman didn't know which turbulence she caught. After swimming for a while, Xiao Peng found that not only did he not get closer to the woman, but the distance between them was getting farther and farther.
What the hell should I do?
'Nightingale' is now playing by herself in the waters near Palermo. They drove here so they didn't bring 'Nightingale' with them!
Xiao Peng swam to the surface. There was no boat nearby. Looking at the woman gradually going away, Xiao Peng felt powerless.
He swam towards the woman with all his might but his speed was obviously too slow. He watched helplessly as the woman drifted farther and farther away, and her struggles became slower and slower!
"It's over!" Xiao Peng felt deeply desperate. It was really unpleasant to watch others die in front of him!
Just when Xiao Peng was in despair, he suddenly noticed a huge black shadow swimming towards him from the corner of his eye.
"Nightingale?" Xiao Peng was delighted. If Nightingale came with him, it would save him a lot of trouble. He could let Nightingale rescue the woman!
But he also felt something was wrong. How did Nightingale grow so much bigger? When Xiao Peng turned around and saw the dark shadow clearly, he felt his scalp tingling.
Holy shit, this isn't Nightingale! This is actually a sixgill shark!
Why was Xiao Peng able to identify this shark at first sight? Because ordinary sharks have five pairs of gill slits! But sixgill sharks have an extra pair of gill slits. (By the way, there are sevengill sharks that have two more pairs of gill slits than ordinary sharks, but sevengill sharks belong to the family Hexacharinidae. So it's not a big mistake to say that sevengill sharks are a type of sixgill shark.)
He didn't know whether to say he was lucky or unlucky!
Many people know that the largest shark in the sea is the whale shark; the second largest shark is the basking shark, so what kind of shark is the third largest shark?
Many people say it is the great white shark, but this answer is actually not accurate. The longest great white shark known to date is only about six meters long, and there are many sharks that are longer than it. For example, the Greenland shark is more than seven meters long. It is no problem for the tiger shark to grow to six meters. The scalloped hammerhead shark and the European sharpnose shark can also grow to this length. If the tail is counted, the length of the slender-tailed thresher shark can be close to eight meters!
In addition, there are several deep-sea sharks that people don't know much about, such as the megamouth shark, of which only 17 have been found since 1976. However, these 17 are quite long, with the smallest being over four meters long and the longest reaching nearly six meters.
However, it's not the largest recognized deep-sea shark. The largest known deep-sea shark is the sixgill shark! This is the oldest shark species in the world, having remained largely unchanged since the Jurassic period. Many marine biologists firmly believe that sixgill sharks over ten meters long exist in the deep sea.
Of course, this is just speculation. After all, this shark lives in very deep waters. They usually live at a depth of about 2,000 meters under the seabed. Sometimes they follow food to the "shallow sea area" for foraging, but that is still less than 500 meters under the seabed! This greatly increases the difficulty of people understanding this shark!
Scientists' basic understanding of this shark comes from searching for it in the Cayman Trench off Honduras, at depths of 600 meters, using specialized submarines. Only a few dozen people in the world have actually seen a sixgill shark underwater. Xiao Peng is now one of them!
Xiao Peng was now certain that this sixgill shark was definitely bigger than a great white shark! This sixgill shark was at least seven and a half meters long! Much longer than a great white shark! It looked like a small submarine, absolutely intimidating!
How come I saw this guy in the Strait of Messina?
Xiao Peng suddenly remembered that there was a document in the Cousteau family database that recorded this information! Due to the unique topography of the "threshold" of the Strait of Messina, the tides at both ends of the ocean basin during the new moon will cause the submarine currents to surge upward, bringing sixgill sharks and their food to the surface. Therefore, sixgill sharks are sometimes observed in the Strait of Messina.
But the probability is not high, so Xiao Peng has won the first prize!
The sixgill shark is considered a gentle shark. According to current records, it is generally harmless to humans unless provoked. However, unlike basking sharks or whale sharks, it is a carnivorous shark! It will eat any fish, marine mammals, and mollusks it can find!
God knows whether the woman struggling desperately there would be mistaken by it as prey or would be attacked by it. If it rushed forward and bit the woman, she would be dead!
Xiao Peng was still worried, but the huge sixgill shark swam to Xiao Peng with its tail. Xiao Peng frowned slightly, thinking that the sixgill shark wanted to attack him, but the sixgill shark rubbed its head against him.
This scene looks familiar. Nightingale did the same thing when she encountered me!
Xiao Peng was secretly delighted! This shark must understand what he was thinking, right? He calmed himself down and pointed at the woman who had fallen into the water, signaling the sixgill shark to lead him over.
The sixgill shark didn't disappoint Xiao Peng, swimming directly towards the woman with its head pushing Xiao Peng towards it. Xiao Peng simply turned around and lay on its back. This sixgill shark was much larger than a nurse shark! It was twice as long as a Nightingale, and lying on its back was much more comfortable than lying on a Nightingale.
The 'sixgill shark' and the 'nurse shark' are both sharks that are not good at swimming, but the 'sixgill shark' is even worse at swimming than the 'nurse shark'. After all, they usually live in the deep sea, where they cannot swim fast due to the water pressure. Besides, there is no point in swimming fast in such a deep sea.
But this speed is N times faster than Xiao Peng!
Soon Xiao Peng arrived in front of the woman. The woman had slowly stopped struggling and held her fists flat in front of her chest.
Xiao Peng frowned. This wasn't a good thing! As a diver, Xiao Peng knew that most people who drowned experienced this. It was a special human condition called 'corpse spasm'!
This situation will occur if a human dies in a state of high mental excitement. For example, during a war, some soldiers will still cling to the enemy even though they are clearly dead; for example, people who commit suicide with a gun will still hold the pistol tightly in their hands after death; people who commit suicide by hanging will still hold the rope tightly in their hands, etc. These are all manifestations of this state.
This is not a good thing for this woman. She needs to be given artificial respiration immediately!
The sixgill shark swam right next to the woman, Xiao Peng grabbed her and dragged her out of the sea. He looked around and saw a piece of sandy land in front where he could go ashore. Xiao Peng signaled the sixgill shark to swim in that direction. The water there was too shallow and the sixgill shark couldn't swim up, so Xiao Peng jumped directly into the sea, dragged the woman ashore and started to perform artificial respiration!
This is a compulsory course for divers.
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