yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Do Lemon Sharks Attack Each Other? | SharkFest


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

NARRATOR: The cannibal sharks investigation heads to Bimini in the Bahamas. The mangrove swamps here are a precious nursery for lemon sharks. Every year, scores of pregnant females return to these shallow waters where they were born to give birth. But in a Machiavellian twist that surprised scientists, someone was eating the kids.

TRISTAN GUTTRIDGE: Of 100 newborn sharks born in June of one year, by June the next year, around 50 are left. So 50% of the cohort in every year are eaten or die from starvation.

NARRATOR: This pup is less than two feet long, one of a litter of up to 17 pups. Scientists from the Bimini Shark Lab have been studying the lemons here for more than 20 years. They found the pups can stay up to eight years here, learning to hunt and hide among the twisted mangrove roots. But the shock discovery was the pups' biggest threat comes from their own.

TRISTAN GUTTRIDGE: Everything seems to kick off at high tide. As the water rises, it basically gives access to shallow water areas for big predators to come in as well. That's when these big lemon sharks come in and start patrolling and cruising the outskirts of those mangroves.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The young are on high alert. They instinctively hug the mangrove roots which offer some protection. But if they stray too far, the hunt is on.

TRISTAN GUTTRIDGE: For a baby lemon shark that's in close proximity to a big adult, if they haven't seen it before it's seen them, they've got no chance. They can burst attack very quickly and ambush really effectively. I've seen firsthand bite marks. I've seen adults chasing juveniles. You know, we know it's happening.

NARRATOR: It's clear evidence shark cannibalism goes on in the wild. But why would you eat your own?

TRISTAN GUTTRIDGE: The one great advantage that an adult lemon shark has is insider knowledge on where the juveniles are hiding and what tactics they use to avoid predators, because it's been one itself. And that gives it an extra advantage, and probably why they then pick off the juveniles of their own species. What's happening here in Bimini isn't unique. Throughout the world in other nursery areas, big sharks are eating little sharks. It comes down to needing to eat. Why would they not take advantage of that resource?

NARRATOR: And now, new research suggests this has been happening for millennia.

More Articles

View All
What's Changed In The American Economy? | Montana On The Rise
[Applause] [Music] Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Um, I would like to talk a little bit about the changes in America that have occurred over the last two and a half years. Obviously, everybody’s gone through this pandemic, but it’s what it’s done t…
Beautiful Animation Shows What It's Like to Be Homesick in a New Country | Short Film Showcase
Every spring, my mom used to plant boxes of violets and propagate the geranium she’s been growing for years in a small garden on a balcony in Tehran. I remember her telling me, “When you move a plant from one place to another, you need to give it some tim…
Tracing loop execution | Intro to CS - Python | Khan Academy
What exactly is happening behind the scenes when the computer executes a while loop? Let’s trace a while loop step by step to find out. Before we start, let’s see if we can get some intuition for how many times this loop repeats. To count repetitions, we…
From TV Repairman to Artist, One Man Makes Art Out of Parts | Short Film Showcase
[Music] I saw a video once, and it showed the house of the future: TV set in the refrigerator, TV set in the counter, TV set everywhere. You know, controls for this, for that. There I thought, oh, this is funny. You’d have to have another room in the hous…
TIL: These Birds Trick Others Into Raising Their Gigantic Kids | Today I Learned
[Music] Turns out there’s lots of different birds that don’t build nests at all. They only lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. This behavior is called brood parasitism, and a trick is you have to make an egg that looks like all the other eggs. Otherwise…
The 2023 Recession Just Got...Cancelled?
What’s up, Graham? It’s guys here. So, despite ongoing mass layoffs, skyrocketing credit card debt, and a 2008-style housing crash throughout four U.S. cities, a new theory is beginning to make its way through the markets, and that would be the chance of …