Swimming With Sharks: How to Hug a Shark (VIDEO)

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Thnx for sharing. Unfortunately, I'm not impressed, cuz they're Blacktip reef shark.. :grinno: My eyes would be :WHOA: if she's among the Great White sharks. Besides, what she did was cruel. :ROFL: Shark suppose to swim all the time in order to breath :grinno:
 
watched a vid on animal planet, a guy did this with great whites but flipped them over and rubber their bellies. was intense.

~ matt
 
Yup, I'm actually very interested in this. I want to do some research on the stimulation of the ampullae of lorenzini and how it puts them into this trance and see if it has anything to do with reproduction. Hopefully sometime I'll be doing this with the great whites :). I don't think its cruel because they want it. They will stop stimulating the shark then it will swim away for a second then come right back to be stimulated again. I think they are getting some type of pleasure out of it.
 
You guys have me really wanting to see that video.... but I'm stuck away from home and only have a dial up connection from here. I'll have to wait.

Good points about the ability to stimulate a shark or lul it to "sleep" by physical contact with the nose. I'll have to dig out some pics and info for you guys from a study we did awhile back focused on that. We found out some interesting info on it.
 
Ok now that I've seen it, I have a couple of comments.
1) It's not the metal being up against the rostrum that is doing it. The same reaction can be obtained using bare hands. So it rules that out instantly.
2) It's not the "immitating male sharks" because the trick works on both sexes. If it worked on male sharks - then there would be *** sharks. And we all know *** sharks are really just dolphins.
3) Also the shark still has control of itself. It's not going into some state of relaxation and unawareness. They move at any point they want - even if you are still in contact wtih the rostrum. (Good way to donate a hand to science)
 
i think i saw another documentary on this, and they concur with matt's first and second points. third i'm not too sure of. if the sharks arent being relaxed and "entranced"... why do they allow themselves to be "hugged"... because they like it?
 
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