Sharks - Blog Posts

AWWWHHH THIS IS SOO CUTEE GUYS LOOK

⚠️ Important News! ⚠️

Baby Tiger Shark Practicing Her First Bites

Look at her go :)

Look at that little face <3

READ IT CHAT

Sharktober is here!🦈✨

Are you ready for the shark party? I hope to see some fintastic shark artworks!🎨✨

My friend Oliver (Check your amazing art @capi974 ) inspired me with the idea of holding a Sharktober! We created the ideas for the list together, to inspire people to illustrate good content for our dear sharks!🦈✨

Hope you have fun!✨

I hope you like it and can make a lot of creative and positive art from our sharks! Remember to tag your art with the hashtag #Sharktober or #Sharktober2024 so I can see your amazing artwork!

Music: Lu Over The Wall Opening

it's tiger shark TUESDAY

TIGER SHARK APPRECIATION!!

NURSE SHARK AAAAAAA

A Nice Nurse Shark

Requested by @internetdog06

Yes, it’s true! Sharks can be smooth! The nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) defies many shark stereotypes, from their appearance to their demeanor and, yes, the texture of their skin. Although they have a bad reputation among divers for their bite, these sharks are more often slow, shy, and skittish. These traits, combined with its distinctive whiskers, give rise to its other common name: the cat shark.

G. cirratum resides in warm shallow waters, including coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and cliff edges. They can be found in both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean along the coasts of North America, Central America, South America, and West Africa. Wherever they live they are bottom dwellers; they spend most of their days swimming slowly along the ocean floor or lounging near the reefs. Another stereotype broken: nurse sharks do not need to move continuously to breathe.

Despite their shy nature, the nurse shark’s size can make it an intimidating threat to any other fish– or people– that happen to spot it. G. cirratum can be between 3 and 4.5m long and can weigh up to 115 kg. And, yes, their skin is smooth, more like a dolphin’s than a shark’s. Their mouths don’t resemble that of other shark either, lacking the distinctive large, triangular teeth. Rather, they have several rows of smaller fan-shaped serrated teeth in a small, round mouth; best for crushing shellfish and coral. They also make for good defense, primarily against other sharks, curious humans, and occasionally American Alligators.

These sharks are suction feeders, and are able to draw invertebrates and small fish into their mouths from up to 3 cm away. They hunt mainly at night, swimmingly slowly along the ocean floor in search of food. During the day return to a home area to rest with other nurse sharks. Within these groups, also called shivers, they communicate mainly using sound, touch, and electroreception. Their distinctive ‘mustaches’ may be used for the latter two senses, forming a similar role to a cat’s whiskers.

Nurse sharks are territorial, both in their daily resting places and their mating sites. Individuals will return every summer to the same area to reproduce. Males and females with both mate with multiple partners, although males are known to ‘flush out’ competing sperm before copulation to ensure their genetics are the ones passed on, although litters with multiple paternities are common. Males also reinforce social hierarchies by biting both other males and females, which they reinforce within their day-to-day groups. G. cirratum is an ovoviviparous species which means the eggs hatch within the mother, and she give slive birth to about 20 pups after a 5 to 6 month pregnancy. Young cat sharks are spotted, and only grow into their brown coloring when they reach sexual maturity, at around 10 to 20 years old.

Conservation status: The IUCN lists the Nurse Shark as Vunerable. Historically they have been captured for their fins, skin and meat, as well as for the aquarium trade. They are also caught as by-catch in fishing nets. However, the species has several protected habitats along the North and Central American Atlantic coast and is currently being evaluated to better protect its migratory pathways.

Photos

Tchami

Gary Rinaldi

Kent Miller

what is your favorite shark.... very important

either the nurse shark or gonlin shark 😍

THEYRE SO CUTE

Doughnut whale sharks 🍩✨

I love sharks so much im gonna cry

in honor of shark week starting tomorrow 🦈

Silly whimsical shark fact: Sharks are older than trees, when sharks came to be there were only fungi sticking out of the ground.

nobody understands like sharjs in my aquarium like i do

Fun fact of the day

fun facts about sharks

w. wait. hold on a second. are. sharks whales????????

Nope! Sharks and whales are VEEERY different. They haven’t shared an ancestor since... well.... since the devonian, I suppose. That was over 450 million years ago!

See, it’s...

Oh, bother. Alright, fine, I’ll do an infographic. It’ll be easier to explain, because there’s a lot of stuff to digest.

Let’s go back in time to.... THE CAMBRIAN!!

Disclaimer: I made this in like an hour while slapping together what I knew about these two animals and decorating it with cute images. It isn’t totally accurate, and I’m simplifying a lot for ease of reading. Please don’t eat me, I’m not a bio major!

Transcript below the cut!

[Transcript start: The image is a simple-looking infographic with a green background and chalk-like white lined drawings of various fish.

The Cambrian Explosion, which took place about 541 million years ago, featured a whole bunch of neat stuff crawling around. This included things like: 

Opabinia - a shrimp-like organism with lots of side-fins and a tuby-like appendage which it used to scoop things into its mouth

Trilobites - the ancestor of arthropods, which we consider ‘bugs’ these days.

Dickinsonia - an organism which looks a lot like a leaf, with a middle section and ray-like parts coming out of it and forming most of its body. 

Andsome of the first fishes - the jawless fish, who were our earliest ancestors. The jawless fish resemble lamprey eels - things which don’t have a moving jaw bone.

During the Devonian period (approximately 490 million years ago), the fish line evolved jaws, which was great for them, because they could now smile winningly. (And eat stuff better.) This was the last common ancestor shared between sharks and whales.

The jawed fish evolved into two groups - one was the cartilaginous fish (or fish which have no bones, only cartilage, except for their teeth) - and the other was bony fish, which had a skeleton. These body fish were technically whale ancestors - because the group eventually evolved the species which first came up on land. These were creatures similar to lungfish, who were able to process oxygen out of water and could move themselves through mud using their flippers.

Meanwhile, the shark ancestors continued their lineage in the oceans and evolved into many more funky shapes, including rays (like stingrays) and skates.

As for the fish on land - they were the ancestors to what we know today as the tetrapods - the things which eventually became the amphibians, lizards, dinosaurs... and mammals! 

One of these mammals was the whale ancestor, which looked quite similar to what we think of as a regular land animal - it had four limbs, and a body plan not dissimilar to dogs, cats, etc. Although it could walk on land, it decided to make an evolutionary U-turn and go back into the water again.

They evolved to be optimized for swimming, and eventually lost their hind limbs. They still needed to breathe air, though, and they are still considered mammals, because they birth and nurse their young! 

This begs the question: If sharks and whales aren’t related to each other that much, why do they look so similar?

That’s a great question! That’s because of something we call Convergent Evolution.

It turns out some shapes just work really well when you’re trying to swim in water. Having fins, flippers, and being fish-shaped just gives you advantage, so many water dwelling creatures end up evolving similar bodyplans - like whales and sharks did.

There’s still a reliable way to tell the two apart, though. Check their tails! See if you can tell the difference.]

Tattoo commission I made for a friend! ✨

With her favorite sharks snouts! Whale shark, Thresher shark, Mako shark and Goblin shark!

More sharkart in me Instagram! 🦈

Here are the sharks again but cut up into tumblr-digestible pieces!!

have you ever wanted to learn about some hipster sharks you may or may not have heard of before?

because BOY do i have a bucket of Fun Shark Trivia for YOU

(drew and researched these pages for pinkcloverpress on twitter for an Animal-themed magazine last year!!! Twas a blast to get back to my Science-y roots for a hot second)

Some Shark Facts :)

Sharks are older than dinosaurs and trees

Sharks have survived at least four mass extinction events

There are more than 500 different species of sharks alive today

Out of these species, only about a dozen of them are considered dangerous to humans

Sharks don’t really like eating humans, because we aren’t a good food source to sustain them and we tend to fight back

Most shark attacks are either the shark mistaking a human for something else, or the shark just being curious

The five largest living sharks are the Whale Shark, Basking Shark, Tiger Shark, Greenland Shark, and Great White Shark

There are three species of filter feeding sharks, the Whale Shark, Basking Shark, and Megamouth Shark

There’s only one species of omnivorous shark, the Bonnethead Shark

The Greenland Shark can live for centuries, with the largest estimate being 500 years

Hammerhead Sharks have 360 degree vision because of their unusual heads

Sharks are vital to the ecosystems, being apex predators that keep fish populations in check

Any healthy coral reef ecosystem will need a good amount of sharks

Do you know the game Hytale? This game seems to be a competitor of Minecraft, it is being developed by a group of people involved in the Minecraft Modding community! Watch the Trailer!

Naturally, they made sharks just like the generic aggressive monstrous enemy with no depth whatsoever, so I decided to contribute some ideas of creatures to the oceans of Hytale!

In some of these ideas, I explored fantasy abstractions of tonic immobility and electro-sense, characteristics of sharks that I never saw being explored creatively. I have no idea if the developers will care about my ideas, but at least I tried! If you want to follow me on instagram, this is: @AstralRequin

Here's some Overhaul doodles I drew in mah new 'DESIGNER JOURNAL' i got for christmas! plus one Magne drawing cause I got upset that she barely had proper screen time

I didn't draw much

so

uh

yeeah

I was gonna draw more but i decided to abandon ship because of a crazy ass d r e am loll

I've never really drawn Overhaul before, at least his head, and ngl this whole page was me trying to figure out how to draw his hair without it making it look like he has a bigg ass forehead- and- uh- well- yeeeeah.

He's definitally a Drama Queen, that green jacket WITH the purple fur??? like- AND he wears it with confidence??

slay.

In this one I tried remaking my 'Egirl Overhaul' pic I drew for shits and giggles, If i can find where it is i'll post it for you all to see

Overhaul: Kurono do NOT talk to me, I'm doing my mascara.

THIS MAN'S EYELASHES THO. WHY ARE THEY SO GOOD??? like either he has really good genetics or he purposely does mascara on just his bottom lashes

just- this cutie patootie...

who does-

child abuse

Have some Magne because she deserves Justice

JUSTICE FOR MAGNE.

anyways-

here's one of my favourites I made

now, WHY did I draw Overhaul with two small sharks crawling over him like puppy dogs?

well, y'all about to loose yer damn mind

BECAUSE HE H A S SHARKS!!

LOOK AT HIM!! HE'S A SHARK DAD!!! WTH SHARK CHIDLREN!!!

soo context, I bought a overhaul action figure for christmas (since it was the only mha fig in the store but we ain't gon talk about that-) and my parents got me this shark excavation kit for christmas. aaand once I found how tiny the sharks were (the excavation area was so big tho?? tf Natintonal geographic?? waste???) I decided to give them to Overhaul! and they fit in his arms so perfectly I made it canon that he has sharks.

I. freakin love Sharks.

ANYWHO.

hope yah enjoyed

I'll defintally go and find the Egirl Overhaul pic. I think I drew Egirl Dabi & Shigaraki too, and MAYBE aizawa but I can't remember...

I belon infederal prison-

sharks sticker sheet 🦈

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀𖹭⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀𐙚˗ˏˋ 🦈 𝓣𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲 𝓞𝐟 𝓢𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬 ୧ ‧₊˚

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎⠀⠀⠀⠀𖹭

likes and reblogs are appreciated

fun facts about sharks

Got weirdly invested in this immediately after seeing this, I didn’t even think I cared about sharks that much. This is still based off general vibes, my limited shark knowledge, and a Quick Look over at the Shark Research Institute.

Dabi- Tiger Shark

Generally aggressive

Known number of incidents second only to the Great White

Generally solitary or in small groups

Nocturnal

Quote from Shark Research Institute that I think applies, “Do not be lulled into a sense of security by its slow swimming movement and apparent lack of aggression; this shark may nonchalantly take a bite while remaining cool and casual.”

Tomura Shigaraki- Short Fin Mako

Fastest of the sharks and considered hyperactive.

Hyperactive tendencies lead to aggression towards humans, however they are rare due to it staying well offshore

I also think the shark’s known hyperactivity fits well with Shigaraki’s general fidgety-ness and ticks

Himiko Toga- Cookie Cutter Shark

Do I need to explain this one?

Smallest member of the group

Nocturnal

Ectoparasitic shark that attaches itself to larger prey before ripping out a chunk of tissue for food

Spinner-Black Tip Shark

Shark known for hunting by jumping out of the water and spinning

Indifferent to humans outside of baiting situations

Becomes hyperactive in groups

Magne-Lemon Shark

Going mostly off vibes here

Not none for aggression but has been involved in unprovoked incidents (no casualties)

Known for being docile and curious, I apply this mostly to Magne's interactions with the League rather than her villain status

Very social and tend to swim in groups

Twice- Grey Reef Shark

Social

Inquisitive and curios

May become aggressive during feeding

Extravagant threat display and high-speed attacks

Mr. Compress- Oceanic Whitetip Shark

Distinct appearance

Fast and aggressive feeder

Involved in unprovoked attacks

Persistent, bold, and curious

Will circle back even when being fended off

A few extra characters

All for One- Greenland Shark

Mostly for just how long they can live

Also, while appearing sluggish and easy to capture, they are also known to hunt and capture large and fast prey

Kurogiri- Basking Shark

Highly migratory

None aggresive on its own

Kind of creepy looking, but generally cool

Despite basking sharks large size, they are very mobile

that's it, hope that was fun

Okay so my partner sent me a bunch if shark related tik toks (because they know how obsessed I am with sharks) and how they are misunderstood for being these scary things just waiting to eat you when in reality they're just sea puppies

So anyways, what kind of sharks would these guys be? Asking for a friend who happens to have the same name as me

Sharks love pats

Nobady :

Absolutely nobady in easy company:

David Webster :

contrary to popular belief, the eyes of a shark are full of life, love and serenity

why does it have a human face

New shark based oc :]

heh