2,000 brain-eating sharks, drifting to the US coast

People living near the San Francisco Bay area, the United States witnessed the sight of more than 2,000 mysterious sharks, washed ashore by the waves within a few months.

According to the Daily Mail, not only leopard sharks, other marine creatures like rays, bass, big pomfret and other fat creatures also mysteriously died in San Francisco Bay.

The death of thousands of precious sea creatures makes many people worried about the marine environment here, forcing scientists to find out the cause urgently.

Leopard sharks are 3.2 meters long and weigh up to 900kg.

Investigating reports by scientists in the US said that the mass death of marine organisms could be related to a parasite, through breathing holes and eating host brains.

Dr. Mark Okihiro, a researcher at the California Center for Marine and Wildlife Animals, said the culprit is most likely a parasite named Miamiensis avidus . They are single-celled parasites , known by the scientific community as 'zombies'.

Examining the bodies of sharks that drifted ashore, scientists all found their brains severely damaged. Traces of the parasite remain in the brain of ill-fated sharks.

According to Mr. Okihiro, this process of brain-eating parasites is slow. Initially, sharks have almost no abnormal expression. But later, the damaged brain makes us swim around, or lose the ability to orient and eventually drift ashore.

From February to July 2017, California's fisheries and wildlife agency estimates that 2,000 tiger sharks die in San Francisco Bay. But this number may be even bigger because the dead shark in the sea tends to sink deeper into the sea floor rather than being washed ashore by the waves.

Brain-eating parasites are the culprits that cause 2,000 leopard sharks to drift to the coast.

Marine biologist Andrew Nosal, of the University of California, San Diego, said the mass deaths of leopard sharks greatly affected the region's ecosystem.

Currently, scientists are seeking to rescue sharks and many other marine creatures before this terrifying brain-eating parasite.

Leopard sharks are about 3.2 meters long and weigh up to 900kg. On the small bodies of them appear stripes or spots like leopard.

They are considered one of the most feared predators in the ocean. Leopard sharks and bull sharks are the two species that most often attack humans.