Do you want a jar of sharks?

By Kadence Morris

Kadence Morris, Gabriel Cornwell, and Jackson Donnini taken by Kadence Morris

Ms. Collins has brought some interesting specimens to her Zoology class this year, but the coolest by far would have to be the dogfish sharks.

Ms. Collins opened her semester last year with all sorts of labs and dissections. Worms, squid and even a sea urchin, Ms. Collins' dissections did not disappoint, but students were not ready for what was to come next. 

As students filed into the lab, putting on their gloves, aprons and goggles, a putrid smell hit them, and they realized they might need to wear a mask as well. While setting up the lab, Ms. Collins walked around and plopped 5-10 lb sharks onto the dissecting trays.

The students, eager to get started, ran through the procedures and began cutting. Each student was assigned a role in the group, so while the reader/recorder announced the directions, the head dissector and assistant dissector grabbed hold of their scalpels and began.

After identifying the liver (which takes up about 70% of the shark's body) and removing the top layer of skin, the students reached the stomach. Fish, bones and even an octopus were some of the meals discovered in the stomachs of these sharks.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this dissection was when the lower half of the shark was being inspected, and everyone had received a pregnant shark! At least three baby sharks were discovered in every shark, most of them still attached to their yolk sacks, but the lucky ones found up to seven baby sharks in one momma.

These sharks were all caught at different times, so they all tell a different story; some had babies almost halfway through the birth canal, while others had whole creatures inside them. One student cut the stomach open of their dogfish shark and found an intact fish, so they cut that fish open and revealed another intact fish inside that fish. Ms. Collins described it as the “Russian doll of life.”

Ms. Collins loves to study these animals, so she often encourages her students to persue further study, in and out of the classroom. Needless to say, many students went home with jars of baby sharks that day.

Ms. Collins will continue her dissections throughout the rest of the semester, bringing in other animals such as frogs, fish and, at the end of the year, a pregnant rat.