I've just come back from the Great Barrier Reef and have a shark related question, which has been bugging me. So here goes....
We were out on the outer reef and saw several white tip reef sharks mooching around, nothing strange there, but then we saw one lying on the bottom, in a sandy patch, not moving, no apparent injury, looked normal except for the fact it wasn't moving, not even a little fin twitch, nothing.
Now, I thought that sharks had to move continuously to keep water filtering through the gills, if that is not the case then mystery solved it was just having a sit down. Alternatively, maybe it was parked in a current, thus it could stay still and water still go through its gills.
Of course there is the chance that it may have expired and that's where it landed, but it looked healthy and its eyes didn't look dead, not that I got too close to it, wouldn't want to startle it and loose a chunk of flesh. And don't fish float when they die?
So if anyone knows if this behaviour is normal and why it was doing it or can tell me if the poor thing had snuffed it, I would appreciate it.
Thanks
We were out on the outer reef and saw several white tip reef sharks mooching around, nothing strange there, but then we saw one lying on the bottom, in a sandy patch, not moving, no apparent injury, looked normal except for the fact it wasn't moving, not even a little fin twitch, nothing.
Now, I thought that sharks had to move continuously to keep water filtering through the gills, if that is not the case then mystery solved it was just having a sit down. Alternatively, maybe it was parked in a current, thus it could stay still and water still go through its gills.
Of course there is the chance that it may have expired and that's where it landed, but it looked healthy and its eyes didn't look dead, not that I got too close to it, wouldn't want to startle it and loose a chunk of flesh. And don't fish float when they die?
So if anyone knows if this behaviour is normal and why it was doing it or can tell me if the poor thing had snuffed it, I would appreciate it.
Thanks