Remember the shark video I posted not too long ago?
Well, in the post I said that the shark they caught was a lemon shark but I was wrong.
It's a nurse shark.
In the video, when the shark first comes to the surface my BIL says that he thinks it's a nurse shark but then later when they got it close to the boat and saw how yellow it was they assumed it must be a lemon shark.
My dad called the other night and told me that he'd noticed this in the video.
The whisker looking things under the shark's mouth are called barbels and lemon sharks don't have them - nurse sharks do.
Nurse sharks are bottom feeders and these barbels contain taste buds and are used to search for food as the shark swims along the bottom.
I've always thought nurse sharks were a much more gray color but according to my dad they range anywhere from a yellow to dark gray.
Lemon sharks also live and feed along the bottom but instead of having barbels they have extremely sensitive and accurate magnetic sensors in their nose which helps them to detect electrical impulses emitted by potential prey.
So I've learned something about nurse and lemon sharks, the Island King and his brother have a tale to tell and the shark lives to see another day.
Not bad.Labels: Done
