Aside from the fact that Jason Abbadon is absolutely right, I'd just like to point out there is a monumental difference between these two sharks mating, and two breeds of dogs.

All dogs (Note, not all Canids, all dogs), are the exact same species. From a weinerdog, to a Great Dane, they are genetically the same. (Housecats, too)
The Austrailian Blacktip, and the Common Blacktip, while closely related, are genetically distinct species.
Discovering a significant wild population of hybrids of these two sharks (And 57 known individuals is a significant population), is akin to discovering a population of elephants that are hybrids of African and Asian. Two totally different, but related species, that have very little interaction with one another, due to habitat. (They used to have mildly overlapping habitats, until man severed it. At least, I believe they did)
While why the "new" sharks are significant has been stated very well, I just felt the need to point out the "dogs" analogy really does not work at all. Completely different thing.

So it'd be closer to polar and black bears mating? Supposedly that's happened, and it gave birth to some sort of prehistoric bear. Am I missing something here?

Also no sharks with lasers jokes?

Simular, yes. It's more like your grizzly/polar bear example than the dog example.

Maybe I'm not being clear with "unthinking" terminology-
There's no guiding intelligence causing this- nothing supernatural saying "I need to hook these sharks up!"
Nor are the sharks making a decision to do something new, and while as an adaptation, these sharks may have an advantage, it's no guarentee of success.

It's true that we may be seeing the first select few hybrids that have this trait, but there's no telling how long these sharks have been interbreeding- this might not be as new as people think and may have just gone unnoticed before now. I dont know the extent they test such things there- shark research is woefully under-funded in the States.

As to climate change causing all this, it could be a case of correlation not equaling causation- it may have nothing to do with climate change (despite the story) and everything to do with pollution. Or fishing. Or diminishing habitat. Or female cold water sharks put out on the first date.
There's a lot left to be worked out.

And for the record, I abstained from the "sharks with lasers" joke, as well as the "jimp the shark" joke I was going to make about the scientists possibly overreaching.

Creatures are always evolving. That is why you can go to "insert tropical, secluded island" that has foliage hanging from tall branches and correlate that to the fact that the turtles there only have long necks. The reason for this is because the turtles with short, stubby necks died out and the long necked ones continued to breed. Of course, the opposite is true for humans. Our dumbest seem to breed the most. Lucky us.

Intelligence sems to be a use it or lose it thing- science has recently been revising how it views such things- my favorite example is the New Caledonia Crow- little bastards are smarter at problem solving than chimps or human two year olds.

Check out an amazing Nature doumentary at pbs.org on crows- they have facial recognition for not just other crows, but animals and humans- and they teach their children what to look out for....meanwhile we cant tell one crow from another, and often cant recall people we've met and interacted with.

By contrast, chimps and other primates seem to have hit a plateau for intel- they dont need more for their niche, so they never developed it...but now us humans are wiping them out and they cant possibly adapt to all we're throwing at them.

Humans are a giant asteroid hitting the world....

I don't see anything supernatural about what they have been programmed to do by their DNA and you were completely clear with your "unthinking" terminology.

I'm just looking at the evidence the world has presented us and processing it a little different.

Here we have a change in the enviroment and organisms within that enviroment evolving in order to adapt in a short period of time.

That is very different than random mutation along with natural selection over an extended period of time leading to the evolution of a new species, and a huge scientific breakthrough that should fundamentally change the way we look at the theory of evolution.

Wouldn't you agree?

I think you have grossly misunderstood my original post. I was only referring to Classified's statement about dogs.

Perhaps I should have been more clear in my use of the term "interbreeding". I meant that different breeds of dog can mate with each other, usually without issue (there's a whole industry based on it) and that the same thing applied to different breeds of cats. In fact, although it's not part of the official classification, I would place "Breed" under "Species" in the taxonomical hierarchy.

I was not implying that dogs and cats can mate with each other (male dog/female cat or vice versa) and produce hybrid offspring. And I certainly wasn't suggesting flying monkeys or any of the other fantastical hybrids you mentioned.

For one, wolves and coyotes are not different breeds of dog. They aren't even the same species (Canis lupus and Canis latrans, respectively). They are part of the same genus as dogs, though.

In your statement you're using the term "dogs" to represent the entire genus and "breed" to represent the different species within that genus. Those terms should only refer to a specific subspecies (Canis lupus familiaris) and the slight variations (breeds) within it.

I suppose "dog" could also refer to Canis lupus dingo (i.e. dingos), depending on where you're from. Some cultures use dog and dingo interchangeably, even though they don't really mean the same thing.

Which is why I mentioned ligers and tiglons. Both are also exceptions to the rule, and as far as I'm aware they too are also born sterile. And according to that article, we can now add Blacktip sharks to that list of exceptions, though I don't believe it said whether any of the 57 confirmed hybrid Blacktips are fertile or not.

It was too obvious.

What's next, sharks with lasers?

I'd buy a figure of a shark with lasers actually- ou could stick one of those laster used to torment cats into the shark that Showdown namor came with or a rubber squeaky shark...maybe add a GI Joe jetpack in there...

I wanted to see a hammerhead mix.