Swimming with sharks...

[Rob_K]

Took this shot this afternoon, snorkelling off the coast of Niue Island in the Pacific. "Ox" underwater digital camera (automatic). It's a White-tipped Reef Shark, with Remora swimming underneath. Not exactly your Grey Nurse or anything, but I felt pretty brave anyway! :P ;)

[sheeny]

Cool! Thanks Rob.

Al.

[Tamtarn]

Great shot Rob and the camera's not even shaking. :whistle:

[GeoffW1]

Hi Rob,

Oooh, I think you were a bit braver than you thought at the time. I think that might be a silver-tip whaler shark, C. Albimarginatus, not the less aggressive white-tip reef shark, T. obesus. Despite its zoological name, the reef shark is a long slim shark with a longer head forward of the gill slits.

The whaler has a beefier barrel-shaped body, with a shorter wider head. Admittedly it is not always easy to tell from a photo, but how much more exciting if you had known you were hanging out with a whaler.

BTW the grey nurse is a very docile species, not at all dangerous to swimmers. Most of the attacks in Victoria and NSW here in Oz have been made by whaler sharks.

Cheers

[gary]

Rob,

By the sounds of it, you should consider teaming up with John Bambury,
who, as was reported in Iceinspace this year, snapped a picture of a harmless
bull snake which after having struck out at the camera, John then recognized
as a actually being a venomous rattle snake. :eyepop:

Nice picture though. :thumbsup:

Best Regards

Gary

[Rob_K]

Er, thanks Geoff! This is not the sort of news I really wanted to hear :whistle:! Fortunately there were other, juicier, tastier people in the water at the time, so maybe things were OK after all :P. I'll consult some books as soon as I get home - seems my 'study' was not quite up to scratch!

Cheers -

[Rob_K]

Phew! Seems it is the White-tipped Reef Shark (Triaenodon obesus) and not the Silvertip Shark (Carcharhinus albimarginatus). The reef shark is characterised by a larger second dorsal fin (much smaller in Silvertip), and the white tip in the Silvertip extends down the margins of the fins (not the case with my little fella - mind you, 4-5 feet long!). Behaviour described fits my subject well - it was lurking in a coral cave.

Reef shark info from:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Triaenodon_obesus.html

Silvertip info from:
http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=98

Anyway, your point is valid Geoff, that you shouldn't just jump to conclusions when armed with insufficient information. Thanks!

[GeoffW1]

Aha, yes, if it was lurking in a cave on the sand, then a reefie it most likely was. Length of fins is awfully hard to assess from a single photo as the fin can be inclined to the camera.

I thought it would be much more exciting though if you could say it was a whaler. Here is one of a silver tip monstering a diver. It shows the smaller dorsal fin.

http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=977463

Cheers