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Flaring gills give this species its name, this frilled shark is swimming at Japan’s Awashima Marine Park. These frilled sharks are very rare and live many thousands of feet under the water and thus sighting them is not easy.

Spotted by a fisher on January 21, this 5.3-foot (160-centimeter) shark was transferred to the marine park, where it was placed in a seawater pool.

“We think it may have come to the surface because it was sick, or else it was weakened because it was in shallow waters,” a park official told the Reuters news service.

But the real reason for its coming tot the surface may never be known, because it died just hours after it was caught.

A very new species (mammal) has been discovered in the forests of Peru. This is a large rodent that has been called a handsome novelty by its finders. It looks similar to a squirrel and also a spiny rat put together.

This is a nocturnal tree climbing rodent that has long fur, and a broad blocky head, and a thickly furred tail. It has a blackish crest of fur on its crown, nape and shoulders that give it a different appearance.

This new species, has been named Isothrix barbarabrownae, which were found by an international team of field researchers in Manu National Park and Biosphere Reserve around the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains in southern Peru. The Manu has many species of mammals and birds than any equivalently sized area in the world, experts claim.

“Preliminary DNA analyses suggest that its nearest relatives, all restricted to the lowlands, may have arisen from Andean ancestors,” says Bruce Patterson, curator of mammals at The Field Museum in Chicago, US, who was involved in the study. “The newly discovered species casts a striking new light on the evolution of an entire group of arboreal rodents.”