AssetID: 55139142
Headline: RAW VIDEO: Lazy lovers! Leopard sharks filmed mating for the first time
Caption: A marine biologist has captured on camera a leopard shark mating sequence in the wild for the first time, offering rare insights into the behaviour of this rarely seen endangered species. Like a bad ex-boyfriend, the males didn’t possess much bedroom stamina, as the footage, taken off New Caledonia by Dr Hugo Lassauce of the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC), showed two male sharks and a female engaging in mating that lasted just under two minutes in total. “I was snorkelling and surveying this aggregation of leopard sharks when I spotted a female with two males grasping her pectoral fins on the sand below me,” said Dr Lassauce. “I thought, ‘something is going to happen – I’m staying right here with my GoPros’. An hour later it finally happened. It was over in minutes, but we got it.” The encounter, now documented in the Journal of Ethology, is thought to be the first scientifically recorded instance of two males copulating in quick succession with a female leopard shark in the wild. All three sharks measured about 2.3m in length. Dr Lassauce, who collaborates with Noumea’s Aquarium des Lagons, said the team immediately recognised the scientific significance of the video. “It’s rare to witness sharks mating in the wild, but to see it with an endangered species – and film the event – was so exciting that we just started cheering,” he said. He had been snorkelling weekly with the sharks, around 15km off the New Caledonian coast, as part of a monitoring programme. While he had previously seen males pursuing females or arriving just after mating had occurred, this was the first time he had observed the full sequence. “I told my colleague to take the boat away to avoid disturbance and I started waiting on the surface, looking down at the sharks almost motionless on the sea floor,” he recalled. In case you were wondering, as with some human wannabe Lotharios, the males are not particularly attentive or long-lasting lovers, and appeared to fall into a kind of sleep shortly after the deed was done. “It was over quickly for both males, one after the other,” Dr Laussace said. “The first took 63 seconds, the other 47. Then the males lost all their energy and lay immobile on the bottom while the female swam away actively.” Leopard sharks, also known as zebra sharks (Stegostoma tigrinum), are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They have been studied extensively in captivity, but little is known about their natural mating behaviour. The study was co-authored by UniSC’s Dr Christine Dudgeon, a marine ecology and evolution specialist, along with Dr Olivier Chateau and Hugues Gossuin of the Aquarium des Lagons. Dr Dudgeon said: “This evidence suggests the site in New Caledonia is a critical mating habitat, which can inform management and conservation strategies as well as help us understand population dynamics and reproductive behaviours more widely,” she said. She added that the findings could support artificial insemination research designed to help “rewild” the species. “It’s surprising and fascinating that two males were involved sequentially on this occasion,” she said. “From a genetic diversity perspective, we want to find out how many fathers contribute to the batches of eggs laid each year by females.”
Keywords: leopard sharks,photo,feature,video,animals,mating,australia
PersonInImage: Leopard sharks mating.