Unlike other sharks, a cookiecutter’s teeth are connected at the bottom in the lower jaw. These jaws are from Isistius brasiliensis, the same species of cookiecutter shark that attacked a swimmer in Hawaii in 2009, the first documented cookiecutter attack on a live human. A new study co-authored by George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File housed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, will appear in the July print edition of Pacific Science.
Photo taken Nov. 9, 2009, by Randy Honebrink/ Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources