The prehistoric shark - One of my visits to the Natural Museum Of History, New York
Melissa Ardan Rojas



I had read many times, that when the earth was created, in this part of the world just existed water. For very many millions of years, existed just huge animals, which lived on earth and in the water. When I first visited the Natural History Museum in New York, I went of course, to see the Dinosaur Hall, it was huge one… but what impressed me, was the jaws of the prehistoric shark… my blood just was frozen, right away! My eyes could not believe it… it was placed just at the end of the Hall, right in the middle. You could see at the right, the Brachiosaurus, Iguanodonts and the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the left, (although I´ve read, their teeth, were just not designed by nature to eat grass...!) for me just existed the jaws of these prehistoric shark.


I started to move towards the jaws, I didn´t even see, what it was placed left or right, the jaws had such an attraction on me, that when I was under the hanging jaws, I could see their real magnitude... I´m glad, that times are over… Anyway, from right to left, it was nearly four meters wide, and the open jaw, nearly two meter high - a man could have been easily swallowed, without even been beaten.
One of their teeth, could measure 0,25 centimetres wide, and 20 in high, in a triangle form..and they were real, real sharp. I hope my mind don´t exaggerate the measures, but I´m quite sure, I really got the right side, since I look at them, with my both eyes. It´s been said, that these kind of sharks existed nearly 450 millions years ago. Just to see the remains, could have taken the living lights out of you.


Nowadays, sharks still live in our oceans, remarkable dangerous creatures. The first time I dived, was in the waters near of Cancún. The mexican divers took us, to the “Coral Garden”, incredible place. One could see over 30 meters under water. We were nearly 15 meters under the water. One of the places the Mexicans offered us, in order to make just a short visit, was an underwater cave… where sharks supposed to be sleeping… (and I´d the feeling, they wanted to see how courageous, people were… I don´t mind them being “machos” at all, that means, they just wanted to demonstrate, how braved they were, therefore they said to us: “that we also may pat them on the head! I mean the sharks… since they were sleeping, eh! Can you imagine my answer? I can tell you, already, “I didn´t accept that offer, at all. Noway.” We should not lose one more word on it. Corals fine!, Barracudas fine! Piranhas… That´s another kind of funny creatures… we´ll talk about them another time.


We continue with the sharks stories… long, long, long ago, at the Centralamerican isthmus, the coast of Nicaragua didn´t have the actual shape. Now, where we see the big lakes of Managua and Nicaragua, it was said to be part of the sea. As you may know, the earth is composed of several plates which covered the earth and all the surface of the continents, mountains and the sea bed are all located on the plates. Sometimes they move in very heavy way and collided one another and that provokes or cause the earthquakes… and also the appearance of new mountains, volcanoes and so on. Anyhow, it seems that the coast of Nicaragua at the Pacific side, was also shoved up, so that some part of the sea was kept inside the land masses, this lakes have no salt water; this lakes are fresh water lakes. Normally salty lakes are built from residual minerals form the mountains which are brought in the waters of rivers to lower lands. The saltiest lake is of course, the Dead Sea, in Israel. The most incredible thing is that in the lakes live –I still hoped- the only fresh water sharks on earth. There are not fresh water sharks anywhere else. Isn´t that funny!


As you also know, mankind is the only dangerous creature, who doesn´t really care for the survival of other creatures. Men take any other kind of life for granted, for their economical advantage. In one opportunity I was speaking with a Swiss man, he was director of the philharmonic orchestra in Bern, and he was married to a nicaraguan girl. He happened to be travelling as me in the same plane and he told me, this story: "nicaraguans, may have already finished with the life of these incredible sharks… he had heard, that they´d processed them into “fish flour”.


I couldn´t believe my ears! What a hell is going on? We have to take care of our nature and and creatures. We have not the right to finish them. Once I read in a book… that the creatures on earth were created with love and much, much earlier than mankind. Men on earth, supposed has a gift from the gods, and that is “the ability to think”, so we must used it “to do good and be kind with all creatures”, and take care of what we have.


Nowadays, I´ve heard, that in the coast of El Salvador, Korean firms have come to the country, since they want "sharksfins"... this is something very precious paid, in their country... some people saw, when they made an excursion, in the zone of the Golf of Fonseca, near Nicaragua, they saw hundreds of shark fins drying in the sun... this is a cruelty, since the fishers just cut the fins and let the shark alive and throw them into the water... they can not swim anymore and drawn... this is something for "Green Peace"... we need to save the sharks, they are the police of the oceans, and if they are not there anymore, we will have problems... 
respect life, respect life, respect life...