Shark Love

So many people have had the wonderful experience of owning fish. Whether it was a simple goldfish or more complicated saltwater fish. Everyone knows that sharks are basically the coolest fish to own (definitely bragging material). I have owned sharks. They are definitely hard work.

Well, a recent study was done on small sharks about social behavior. The study was done at the University of Exeter as well as the Marine Biological Association. Social interactions were tested in small sharks placed in several different environments. It was observed that when the group size was altered, sharks that had a strong social connection to other specific individual sharks tended to stay close to those ‘friends’. Their behavior was consistent throughout the whole experiment. The concept of fish friends among sharks is almost foreign since when you think about sharks, most tend to think about individual sharks who choose to stay solitary until mating.

Dr. David Jacoby stated that the behavior was repeated throughout different habitats. He also mentioned that these social behaviors seemed to reflect survival tactics where social groups sought shelter in the comfort of masses, decreasing odds of being attacked by a predator. Individuals who chose not to be social would change their colors to blend in with their surroundings (David M. P. Jacoby 2014). 

                When you own fish, you usually have to get around three to make sure that the dominance among the fish is not too intense. Imagine getting a whole group, and being able to observe social behavior yourself! Friends galore!

David M. P. Jacoby, Lauren N. Fear, David W. Sims, Darren P. Croft. Shark Personalities? Repeatability of social network traits in a widely distributed predatory fish. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2014; DOI:10.1007/s00265-014-1805-9

University of Exeter. “Sharks have personality traits, study suggests.” ScienceDaily. Science Daily, 2 October 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141002084343.htm.>