{"id":603636,"date":"2026-09-02T12:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/603636\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T12:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:24:09","slug":"divers-hid-a-camera-in-a-lobster-den-what-happened-next-shocked-them-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/603636\/","title":{"rendered":"Divers hid a camera in a lobster den. What happened next shocked them all"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Back in 2024, researchers studying lobster predation on sea urchins were surprised to record footage of an unexpected urchin predator: sharks. <\/p>\n<p>After setting up a camera in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/marine-animals\/difference-between-a-lobster-and-a-crab\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">lobster<\/a> den overnight \u2013 with \u201cstrategically placed\u201d urchins inside the den \u2013 they were shocked when most of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/insects-invertebrates\/sea-urchins\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">urchins<\/a> were eaten by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/marine-animals\/port-jackson-sharks-asleep-on-seabed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Port Jackson<\/a> and crested horn sharks.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was designed to be a lobster experiment, but sharks came in and ate the majority (45%) of the tethered urchins while lobsters ate few (4%),\u201d said Jeremy Day, a PhD student at University of Newcastle who led the study.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLobsters seemed generally uninterested in eating urchins,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The footage shows the sharks sneaking in to snack on huge sea urchins, which they can handle with ease. <\/p>\n<p>Port Jackson and crested horn sharks snacking on urchins. Credit: Jeremy Day\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt has been thought until now that there were few or no predators capable of handling very large urchins,\u201d said Day. \u201cSharks are overlooked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/apex-predators-what-they-are\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">predators<\/a> of sea urchins in New South Wales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This discovery challenges previous beliefs that lobsters are key predators of sea urchins and could help conservationists protect reefs by controlling urchin numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Image and video credit: Jeremy Day<\/p>\n<p>More wild stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back in 2024, researchers studying lobster predation on sea urchins were surprised to record footage of an unexpected&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":["post-603636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}