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| World's first shark threesome caught on camera by excited scientists/ |
A trio of sharks have been filmed having a threesome for the first time. A marine biologist filmed the large leopard sharks getting intimate in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Australia. After spotting them on the bottom, he waited on the surface until they started copulating.
Describing the moment, Dr Hugo Lassauce said: "I waited an hour, freezing in the water, but finally they started swimming up.
“It was over quickly for both males, one after the other. The first took 63 seconds, the other 47.”
Despite being brief, the males were tired after the encounter, as they “lost all their energy and lay immobile on the bottom while the female swam away actively.”
The three sharks, seen in French territory New Caledonia, were all about 2.3 metres long. Their species is listed as endangered, and there is little information on their natural mating behaviour in the wild.
For this reason, and for it being a unique behavioural observation, scientists were excited by the discovery. They say it may help them learn how to better inseminate sharks artificially and “rewild” the species in countries including Australia.
Researchers from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia said in an article in the Journal of Ethology that leopard sharks in captivity have been observed penetrating females for up to five minutes, so this was significantly shorter.
They added that the “lack of interest from the male toward the female after copulation coupled with the female swimming to separate areas is common in many shark species”.
Senior Research Fellow Dr Christine Dudgeon, a co-author of the paper with Dr Lassauce, said: "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.”