3 sharks, 2 electronic cameras

Lassauce had 2 GoPro Hero 5 cams all set at hand, albeit with doubtful battery life. That’s why the video footage has 2 disruptions to the action: as soon as when he needed to change electronic cameras after getting a “low battery” signal, and a 2nd time when he willingly stopped recording to save the 2nd electronic camera’s battery. Very little took place for 55 minutes, after all, and he wished to make certain to catch the turning points in the series. Lassauce prospered and was rewarded with victorious cheers from his fellow marine biologists on the boat, who understood complete well the rarity of what had actually simply been recorded for posterity.

The prolonged pre-copulation phase included all 3 sharks still on the seafloor for almost an hour, after which the female began swimming with one male shark biting onto each of her pectoral fins. A couple of minutes later on, the very first male made his relocation, “penetrating the female’s cloaca with his left clasper.” Claspers are customized pelvic fins efficient in moving sperm. After the very first male shark completed, he lay stationary while the 2nd male kept the woman’s other fin. The other shark moved in, did his company, went motionless, and the female shark swam away. The males likewise swam away quickly later.

Apart from the clinical very first, recording the series is an excellent sign that this specific location is a crucial breeding environment for leopard sharks, and might cause much better preservation techniques, along with synthetic insemination efforts to “rewild” leopard sharks in Australia and a number of other nations. “It’s unexpected and remarkable that 2 males were included sequentially on this event,” stated co-author Christine Dudgeon, likewise of UniSC, including, “From a hereditary variety viewpoint, we wish to discover the number of daddies add to the batches of eggs laid each year by women.”

Journal of Ethology, 2025. DOI: 10.1007/ s10164-025-00866-4 (About DOIs).