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The leopard sharks mating on the seabed. Credit: Hugo Lassauce-UniSC-Aquarium des Lagons<\/p>\nUnderwater cameras have recorded the first known footage of two male leopard sharks mating with a female in the wild. <\/p>\n
The rare event \u2013 filmed around 10 miles off New Caledonia, an archipelago in the south-west Pacific Ocean \u2013 shows the two male sharks (both around 2.3m long) mating one after the other with the female. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s rare to witness sharks mating in the wild, but to see it with an endangered species \u2013 and film the event \u2013 was so exciting that we just started cheering,\u201d says University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) researcher Dr Hugo Lassauce, who filmed the incredible moment.<\/p>\n
Footage captures three leopard sharks mating off New Caledonia. Credit: Hugo Lassauce-UniSC-Aquarium des Lagos<\/p>\n
Lassauce had spent a year snorkelling with sharks as part of a monitoring programme but had never witnessed them mating. \u201cI\u2019d seen males swimming fast after females before and I\u2019d arrived \u2018on the scene\u2019 just after a male and female separated, but I\u2019d never seen the whole sequence,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n
On this occasion, a female settled on the seabed with two males gripping her pectoral fins. \u201cI told my colleague to take the boat away to avoid disturbance and I started waiting on the surface, looking down at the sharks almost motionless on the sea floor,\u201d says Lassauce.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the males lost all their energy and lay immobile on the bottom while the female swam away actively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The leopard sharks mating on the seabed. Credit: Hugo Lassauce-UniSC-Aquarium des Lagons<\/p>\n
Leopard sharks, also known as zebra sharks for the stripes on their young, are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. They are found across the Indo-West Pacific, from Africa\u2019s eastern shores to the Pacific Islands and northern Australia. <\/p>\n
Despite their broad range, their wild mating behaviour has remained largely undocumented until now, with most research carried out in aquariums.<\/p>\n
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The leopard sharks mating near the surface. Credit: Hugo Lassauce-UniSC-Aquarium des Lagons<\/p>\n
Dr Christine Dudgeon, senior research fellow at UniSC and co-author of the follow-up study<\/a> documenting the behaviour, says the discovery could transform our understanding of these solitary animals. \u201cThis evidence suggests the site in New Caledonia is a critical mating habitat, which can inform management and conservation strategies as well as help us understand population dynamics and reproductive behaviours more widely,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The findings may also support efforts to boost numbers through artificial insemination, adds Dudgeon. \u201cIt\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n