Shark Week starts with... a pocket shark?

We're headed into Shark Week on Discovery, the week when we alternate between scientists telling us sharks are misunderstood marvels and assorted bite victims and commentators telling us sharks are brutal nasty mankillers who should be wiped out.  One program on offer in sampling the website announcements is The Lost Shark - Extinct or Alive? It will disappoint some people to learn Carcharhinus hemiodon, the shark in question, is a meter long, not some giant, deadly superpredator, but the scientific question is interesting enough.  
ADDED: Fortunately, one of the opening programs is worth watching. Josh Gates and Expedition Unknown explore the facts and myths around everyone's favorite fish monster, Megalodon. EXPEDITION UNKNOWN: MEGALODON airs 28 July at 8PM Eastern time on  Discovery Channel./

Naturally, other channels, notably National Geographic, are running shark programs too.  Getting a head start tonight is HBO, which is showing Meg.  Megalodon is extinct, of course, but that's no barrier to having silly fun with it in fiction. 

We are still discovering new species of shark. Most are small, and some are hard to call a shark with a straight face, except in the scientific sense. The American pocket shark is smaller than a dollar bill and has a squarish head that makes it look kind of cute, like a toy sperm whale with extra fins. This species, like the only other "pocket shark" (named for a pocket-like feature near the pectoral fins, not because Paris Hilton carries one in a waterproof purse or something), a Pacific specimen, is known from only one individual.

The best shark headline of recent years has to belong to the Huffington Post, which announced, "Shark Nearly Chokes to Death On Moose, Is Saved By Canadian Bystanders." Because spotting a 2.8-meter Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus, one of the sleeper sharks, which are very big, long-lived and totally weird) choking to death on a chunk of moose and rescuing it is very much a Canadian thing to do. Maybe it’s the MOST Canadian thing you can do, except maybe offering the shark maple syrup to go with dinner. 

Greenland shark, Smithsonian photo