News Animals

Is that shark ticking? In a first, a shark is recorded making noise

When handled, a small crustacean-munching shark from New Zealand clacked its teeth together

A grayish-brown shark with white spots along it's back swims across a black background.

This small shark, called a rig or smoothhound, could be the first shark documented to make deliberate sounds.

Paul Caiger/University of Auckland

By Susan Milius

Sharks may not be the sharp-toothed silent type after all.

The clicking of flattened teeth, discovered by accident, could be “the first documented case of deliberate sound production in sharks,” evolutionary biologist Carolin Nieder, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and colleagues propose March 26 in Royal Society Open Science.