Leopard sharks aren’t scared to share the love. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
There’s a lot we don’t know about sharks. Sure, we know a bit, but there’s still so much to learn that we don’t even know how much we don’t know. Researchers are constantly surprised by them, and the most recent surprise came in the form of something a little kinky: a leopard shark threesome.
One of the things we don’t know as much as we’d like to know about is the mating habits of the leopard shark. Scientists have seen pre-mating behavior before — especially at Abore Reef, about 10 miles off the coast of New Caledonia — but what they recorded on a recent trip was a first.
“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,” said Dr Hugo Lassauce, a marine biologist and author of a study about the sharky three-way, in a statement.
Until now, in fact, the actual mating had only been observed in captivity. That generally involved a single male, but in the wild, it turns out that leopard sharks are kind of freaky.
“While I was surveying this particular aggregation of leopard sharks, I spotted a female with two males grasping her pectoral fins on the sand below me,” Lassauce said. “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.”
As they continued to watch (or ogle), the researchers saw the normal activity involved in leopard sharks mating.
“I waited an hour, freezing in the water, but finally they started swimming up, “Lassauce recalled. “It was over quickly for both males, one after the other. 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.”
It’s a funny observation, but it also means quite a bit for science.
“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 behaviors more widely,” said Christine Dudgeon, who co-authored the study. “It’s surprising and fascinating that two males were involved sequentially on this occasion. From a genetic diversity perspective, we want to find out how many fathers contribute to the batches of eggs laid each year by females.”
