A new article published this month in PLOS ONE journal gives insight into the mysterious deep sea shark, the cookie cutter shark. The scientists, Peter Best and Theoni Photopoulou of the Centre for Statistics in Ecology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, studied bite marks on whale carcasses for the study.

Cookie cutter sharks are a deep water species and little is known about their feeding behavior other than the telltale bite marks they leave on cetaceans. The sharks are thought to rise up from a depth of 1000 to 4000 meters to prey on the flesh of migrating whales.

In the past it was difficult for scientists to study bite marks of whales as they surfaced to breathe. However, this study used deceased carcasses of many whales to determine the distribution and habits of the sharks.

The sharks on average are half a meter long and inflict non-fatal wounds on whales.

Read the full article here.