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posted by janrinok on Saturday July 18 2015, @03:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the damn-kids!-get-out-of-my-pool dept.

Reef sharks at Ningaloo are largely home bodies but female blacktip reef sharks (Carcharhinus melanopterus), might be swimming long distances to give birth in food-rich waters, research suggests.

Marine biologists tagged 83 reef sharks near sanctuary zones at Coral Bay and Mangrove Bay and tracked their movements to assess how much protection the marine park affords the sharks.

They examined the movements of blacktip reef sharks, grey reef sharks ( Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos ) and sicklefin lemon sharks ( Negaprion acutidens ) at Ningaloo Reef over two years.

Australian Institute of Marine Science experimental scientist Conrad Speed says reef sharks are essentially "home bodies", with most sticking to a fairly small area ranging from less than a square kilometre to more than 20km2.

But, they determined some female blacktip reef sharks made long migrations in the summer months, including one who swam 275km.

"We had five female adult blacktips that we tagged initially in Coral Bay that swam between Coral Bay and Mangrove Bay," Dr Speed says.

"Each way it's about 130-odd kilometres, so it's quite a long distance for a shark that's only a metre and a half in length.


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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday July 19 2015, @09:46AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday July 19 2015, @09:46AM (#210999) Journal

    Did they never hear the story of Cecil Rhodes? Reduced to fishing for sharks from a pier? And what did he catch? A shark! And what was in that Shark? Nice story, not sure if it's true. Does send a lot of Colonial college students to Oxford, though, even to this day.

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