NEW SPECIES FOUND!

MELBOURNE: Marine biologists working in the chilly waters off Port Phillip Bay have uncovered not one, but two, new species of toothless and totally harmless sharks!

DNA testing is expected to show they are very close relatives to the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) common in much warmer waters around the world.

These two new species of basking shark, only one of three plankton-eating shark types ever uncovered, are the:

Proboscis maximus Heraldsun ineffectualartis (pictured at top, right); and the

Proboscis maximus threeay doubleyoo neilmitchellus

Each of these gummy sharks is easily identified by a rather prominent and ugly protruding proboscis mass.

One of the excited marine biologists told The Bug: “The sad thing about these two new species is they are not content with their place in the marine ecosystem off Victoria as has been readily accepted by their plankton-eating cousins off the coast of Great Britain, for example.

“These southern ocean species still think they have teeth and can dominate other species in their watery domain.

“They rush around gumming and sucking at other living creatures they consider to be their inferiors and who they foolishly believe are easily capable of being brought to heel.

“But these other species pay scant if any notice of them; they basically laugh in their faces, swim in and out of their useless gobs and then head away to do what they bloody well like.

“It’s all a bit sad to see, really.”