Huge group of nurse sharks chase a wedding party
It’s such good fun to throw your family into the warm water and watch them enjoying themselves… …and then to arrange for a bunch of sharks to chase them. Swim! Swim!
Nurse Sharks are slow moving bottom dwellers and are usually harmless to humans. If you are the adventurous type we dare you to come and snorkle with them at Shark Ray Alley (Hol Chan Marine Reserve).
Nurse sharks are suction feeders that can generate enough pressure to suck a queen conch right out of its shell? Like many suction feeders, nurse sharks swallow their prey whole.
Known as the “couch potato of the shark world,” the nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) leads a sedentary life. By day, it rests, and by night, it creeps over the sandy floors and coral reefs of its shallow-water habitat, slurping up little animals along the way.
But though it's not a fast or aggressive fish, you should give it plenty of space: People who act carelessly around nurse sharks risk serious injuries. Here are some things that every ocean-lover ought to know about the nurse shark.
1. IT USES A METHOD CALLED BUCCAL PUMPING TO BREATHE.
For certain sharks, lying on the ocean floor is an impossibility. Species like the great white and the whale shark breathe by swimming nonstop; as they travel around, water is constantly flowing into their open mouths and across their gills, supplying oxygen en route. If the fish stop moving for too long, that flow ceases and they die. But other species are perfectly capable of breathing while sitting still—including the nurse shark. By using oral muscles to actively suck water into the mouth—what's called buccal pumping—it can supply oxygen to the gills without needing to swim anywhere.
2. THEY CAN "WALK" ACROSS THE OCEAN FLOOR.
Wild nurse sharks are usually found in shallow, coastal waters. The fish are nocturnal predators who tend to hunt within 65 feet of the ocean’s surface (although adults sometimes rest in deeper waters during the daylight hours). They spend their lives around coral reefs and coastal shelves, and most of their hunting takes place right on the ocean floor, where these slow-moving carnivores look for prey in or near the sand. Instead of swimming, they sometimes use their pectoral fins to “walk” across the bottom.
3. THE TWO LITTLE KNOBS ON THEIR FACES ARE CALLED “BARBELS.”
Barbels are fleshy sense organs that contain taste buds, which they drag across sand in search of prey.
These fact were submitted by Corbin Pacheco: Sophomore at BHS (Belize High School)
Photograph by Conch Creative
Click here to comment on this picture.
Belize Slideshow