Melbourne, October 29 (ANI): Researchers have found that shark brains share several features with human brains, which could help them work on a shark repellent.
Scientists at the University of Western Australia (UWA) say sharks and other cartilaginous fish have highly developed sensory systems and relatively large brains.
Editor Kara Yopak from UWA's Oceans Institute said the study suggested that people may have more in common with sharks than previously thought.
According to Dr Yopak, sharks and their relatives represented the earliest jawed vertebrates.
"Despite broad divergence, there are a number of common features of the brain that evolved at least as early as cartilaginous fishes and persist across all vertebrates," News.com.au quoted her as saying.
"For instance, one of the papers shows that with great white sharks, the area of the brain that receives visual input is quite large, and suggests the relative importance of vision in these animals is quite high.
"This information may direct researchers' efforts towards targeting the visual system when developing repellents for sharks," Yopak added.
The study has been published in the journal Brain, Behaviour and Evolution. (ANI)