This is reported to be the first photograph of a thresher shark giving birth. Photo: Attila Kaszo
An incredible image has been captured of a thresher shark giving birth. According to The University of Chester’s Dr Simon Oliver, it’s the first photograph of a birth in this species.
“Parturient sharks have rarely been observed in the wild,” he wrote, “and little is known of the reproductive strategies of most oceanic species. Here, we present photographic evidence that we captured on April 4, 2013, as the first record of a thresher shark giving birth.”
The image was captured at a shallow coastal seamount called the Monad Shoal in the Philippines, where threshers have been known to visit for the last twenty years. Known as a “cleaning station”, sharks congregate at the seamount to have parasites cleaned off their bodies by parasites called cleaner wrasse. The International Union for Conservation of Nature have classified threshers as vulnerable to overexploitation.
At around 6:30 a.m. on April 4, 2013, Dr Oliver’s team noticed what seemed to be a distressed female shark. From their observation station, they were unable to discern exactly what was wrong, although it was obvious that the cleaner wrasse were concentrated around the shark’s pelvic region. The team took a photo, purely for future identification purposes, then after nearly five minutes, the shark left the station. It was only later when they processed the image that they noticed the pup. “We were doing a standard survey – out every day, making observations, ” Dr Oliver told BBC. “One of [our team] is a photographer – Attila Kaszo. He took the picture of the shark, and when he processed the image and showed it to me, I freaked out.”
