(nurse shark in the picture) LET'S TALK ABOUT FEMALE SHARKS ( ˶°ㅁ°) !! Part 1- Q&A 1) How do I tell if a shark is a male or a female? Mainly, from their pelvic fins. While males have claspers, two intromittent organs that are born from the inner side of their dorsal fins, females have an opening in the innerside of their pelvic fins that function both as a reproductive and urinary system. So basically, the easier way to see if a shark is a male or a female is to watch them from the bottom and see if they have two claspers or just an opening. Another way to tell a shark's gender is their size. Female sharks are larger than males, and if we take for example the Great White Shark, a female can grow up to 16 feet while males only up to 13 ft. Another way, worth of mentioning but not the best at all, is look for the healing scars on the females' bodies known as mating scars. Female sharks have developed a much thicker skin to adapt to the rough way they are handled during the mating with a male. The male bites them and leave scars behind, but thanks to the thick skin they heal faster. 2) Is it true that females are more aggressives than males? Not really. It's proven that males are much more aggressive than females, and you could see that especially during mating season. They are territorial and competitive with other males. Though, what's true is that females can be perceived as dominant in other contexts, as in size, body, thickness, mass, life span and even hierarchy. If you didn't know, sharks have an hierarchy in which the bigger and so more dominant individuals have what you can call an higher status. Though that doesn't happen in every species of shark, in most of the famous ones it does and it's pretty clear. 3) How do they give birth? Sharks have three ways of giving birth. They can be ovoviviparous, viviparous and oviparous. Ovoviviparous means that they have eggs inside them and they let them hatch while keeping them inside then they give birth to the alive Pups (baby sharks are called Pups! I think that's sooooo cute!!!!). Viviparous is just like how we birth them, since humans are viviparous, and lastly, oviparous is when they lay eggs and wait for them to hatch. Shark eggs can vary of size, color and shape depending on the species, but the most famous and intriguing one is the spiral egg, that are Hronsharks'. Part 2- FEMALE STARS 1) Deep Blue Deep Blue is one of the largest Great Whites ever, and is known not only for he massive size, but for her pacific nature around humans! She is estimated to be around 55 years now and is 20 ft. She was first recorded in 1999 in Mexico. She has been the star of episodes on Shark Week too, and various clips of her show how pacific she is towards humans and even other animals! 2) Mary Lee Mary Lee is one of the most loved sharks out there, even by me. She was tracked by Ocearch's staff and named after the expedition leader's, Chris Fischer, mother. She's 16 feet. Mary Lee has helped Ocearch's expedition a lot and is now the face of their organization. In 2017, her tracker stopped working. Fischer thinks she's still alive and that she probably has to live another 20 years, and maybe, maybe, we'll spot her again one of these days... 3) Joan of Shark She's a 40 year old 16 foot female shark that has been called the 'Real life Jaws' from 2014. One curiosity about her is that she has two trackers, one external and one implemented inside her, and that's supposed to work for a whole decade! That will help us discover much more things about Great White Sharks. Hope you enjoyed my little rent hehe!! Come back if you wanna hear anything about sharks or in general sea mysteries and the animals that live in our oceans, just underneath us.
