Page 22 - Shark

Laying eggs

Finding a mate, for some sharks, means a long swim because
males and females live in different parts of the ocean. When
they meet, the male chases the female, biting her to encourage
her to mate. He inserts one of his claspers into her cloaca, or
body opening. Sea water already drawn into a sac in the male’s
MerMaids spiraL egg
Mermaids are body is then squirted into a groove in his clasper (pp. 10–11) A horn shark wedges
mythical sea to flush sperm into her cloaca. In this way, the sperm fertilizes its spiral-shaped egg
creatures with a case into rocks to stop
woman’s body and a the female’s eggs inside her body, unlike bony fish, where predators from eating it.
fish’s tail. Since fertilization occurs outside the body with sperm and eggs
ancient times, sailors
have made up being shed into the water. Fertilization may not happen
stories about immediately because some female sharks can store sperm
mermaids. The
empty egg cases of until they are ready to reproduce. In most sharks, fertilized
dogfish and rays eggs develop in the female’s uterus, or egg tubes, and she
that wash up on the
seashore are called gives birth to baby sharks, called pups (pp. 22–23). In other
mermaids’ purses.
sharks, the fertilized eggs are encased in a leathery shell and
deposited by the female on the seabed. Once the eggs are laid,
the female swims away,

catch Me if you can leaving them to develop and
This male white tip reef hatch on their own. These
shark is pursuing a
female in the hope that sharks are oviparous, which
she will mate with him. means their young hatch cat’s egg
He may be attracted The cat shark’s egg
by her smell. from an egg laid outside the case is firmly anchored
mother—just like birds onto anything growing
on the seabed. Shark
or bony fish. eggs are large and
well protected and so
stand a better chance
of survival, compared
to the masses of small
eggs laid by bony fish.

Love bites
When a male white
tip reef shark gets
close to a female
(right), he bites her
to arouse her interest
in him. He will also
grab her pectoral fin Mating
in his jaws to keep sharks
People rarely
her close to him see sharks mating in
during mating. Very the wild, or even in
little is known of aquariums. From a few
the mating habits of observations, it seems
other large sharks.
that larger sharks mate
side to side. White
thick skins tip reef sharks (left)
Some female sharks, mate side to side
like this blue shark, and may pivot on
have much thicker their heads. The
skins than males, so male of smaller
preventing serious sharks, such as
injury during courtship. dogfish (or cat sharks),
Most love bites are is more flexible and
only skin deep and wraps himself around the
heal in a few weeks. female when mating.