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First published online November 4, 2005
Journal of Experimental Biology 208, 4255-4261 (2005)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2005
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01898

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The red muscle morphology of the thresher sharks (family Alopiidae)

C. A. Sepulveda^1,2,*, N. C. Wegner¹, D. Bernal³ and J. B. Graham¹

¹ Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine and Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0204, USA
² Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research, Oceanside, CA 92054, USA
³ Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA 02747, USA

View larger version (40K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Whole-body reconstructions of the three thresher shark species, showing the position of the red, aerobic locomotor muscle (RM) (red) and vertebral column (yellow). Top, the bigeye thresher, A. superciliosus (58 kg); middle, the pelagic thresher, A. pelagicus (56 kg); bottom, the common thresher, A. vulpinus (70 kg; modified from Bernal et al., 2003). Location of the transverse section through each species corresponds to the position of maximum RM area (see Fig. 2). Each reconstruction is accompanied by a cross-sectional image taken from the specimen (inset; RM in the left side has been color enhanced for clarity).

View larger version (35K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Longitudinal distribution of the red, aerobic locomotor muscle (RM) for the three thresher shark species. (A) bigeye thresher, A. superciliosus (N=3), (B) pelagic thresher, A. pelagicus (N=3), (C) common thresher, A. vulpinus (N=6; modified from Bernal et al., 2003). Gray-shaded bar indicates the body section where maximum RM (shown in red) is found. Yellow represents the vertebral column. The relative amounts of RM in the different positions along the body are expressed as a proportion of the RM cross-sectional area equal to 1 at 50% fork length (see Table 1 for RM cross-sectional area at 50% FL). Values shown are means ± S.E.M.