THE SHARK FACTORY

摘要

Overfishing made the grey nurse shark endangered, but it's the animal's bizarre, cannibalistic embryos that are making it difficult for the species to rebound. The gestating shark pups need a "time out," says Nick Otway, a fisheries biologist at Port Stephens Fisheries Institute in Australia. As a last-ditch effort to keep the species from eating itself into extinction, he built an artificial uterus, a souped-up fish tank that will give each unborn baby its own womb.rnFemale grey nurse sharks have two uteruses, in which embryos play "king of the uterus": competing for nutrients, with the strong gobbling up weaker kin.