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Pride Month Special

Happy Pride Month to my shark enthusiasts across the LGBTQ+ spectrum! Since June is Pride Month, I thought I'd discuss the common view that being LGBTQ+ 'goes against nature' by talking about...being LGBTQ+ in nature.

In nature, sex typically serves the singular purpose of reproduction. Therefore, many animals don't engage in long-term mating like humans, instead breeding with many members of their species to spread their genes to as many offspring as possible. By this logic, same-sex relationships/mating in animals should be an unusual behaviour as the animal takes on the same costs to energy and overall fitness without the benefit of producing offspring.

That being said, over 1500 animal species have been observed engaging in same-sex sexual behaviour, many of which are marine animals. Male guppies have been observed flashing sexual displays at other males, male dolphins have been observed forming long-lasting sexual relationships with other males, female cleaner wrasses will perform the male courting rituals towards other females in the absence of males etc.

Particularly in marine animals, gender can be quite ambiguous too, with marine invertebrates commonly being hermaphrodites, capable of producing both male and female reproductive gametes (typically both sperm and eggs) which, as a result, have no distinguishable genders. Examples include coral, limpets and mangrove rivulus.

Not to mention, there are 500 fish that are known to be sequential hermaphrodites meaning they can change from being one sex to the other when necessary (for example, if the males in a population are wiped out, being able to have females become males is an excellent survival strategy). Many of you will already know that clownfish share this trait but wrasses, groupers and some gobies are also able to change their gender.

Humans changing gender and sexual orientation 'against the rules of nature' is not a reason to dismiss the idea as impossible or ridiculous. That being said, we can see that humans are not outliers in this area anyway and, without even considering land animals nor plants, we can see plenty of examples of the LGBTQ+ spectrum occurring naturally. So let's respect everyone's gender identity and sexual orientation :)

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little silly genderfluid & pan shark because it is pride month and im genderfluid and pan and shark... wait i mean love sharks

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He beautiful!

Whale Shark,Friends!

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Whale Shark,Friends!

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🎇 Happy New Year 🎆

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me, I'm shark

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SHARK FACT!

The two biggest shark species and the biggest ray species are all filter feeders! The whale shark, basking shark and manta ray are really quite peaceful. That doesn't mean you should go and bother them tho. Observe, don't disturb.

Also, basking shark with mouth closed:

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SHARK FACT!

Despite being kinda flat like rays and skates, angelsharks (Squatina spp.) Are still very much sharks. You can tell because their Gill slits are on their sides and their pectoral fins aren't fully fused to the sides of their bodies.

They live on the sea floor, and as a result are highly vulnerable to trawling by fishermen. As a result, of the 24 species assessed by IUCN, only 8 are not considered threatened. Of those 8, 2 of them are near threatened (the African and Pacific angelsharks, S. californica and S. africana). On top of those 8, two species are data deficient, meaning that there's not enough information out there to determine if the species is threatened or not (Cailliet's and Lea's angelsharks, S. caillieti and S. leae). Meaning 14 of the 24 assessed angleshark species are vulnerable to extinction.

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Sharks are older than trees and Saturn's rings

Yup! The fossil records for sharks go back 450 million years (even if they didn't quite look like modern sharks at that point. Sharks as we know them didnt appear till about 150 million years ago. Doesnt stop those older sharks from being sharks, they just looked different. Mouths closer to the front of the head, teeth tended more towards chrushing and were these prett gnarly looking three pronged things, with rayed fins rather than modern shark's more fleshy fins).

And whilst vascular plants (which trees fall under) first started appearing in the record from about 430 million years ago, they were only quite small, and trees didn't start appearing in the record untill from about 45 million years later, so about 385 million years ago.

(Of course, this is when they started to appear in the fossil record, meaning there is a very real possibility that both sharks and trees were around a little earlier than there oldest fossils date to.)

Saturn's rings are estimated to be no more than 400 million years old, but at the youngest 100 million years old. Seeing as our earliest recorded sharks are from about 450 million years ago, this means sharks, and vascular plants, are older than Saturn's rings. And trees are only about 15 million years younger than our oldest estimates for Saturn's rings, but are likely also older than saturns rings, but were not too certain on that.

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Sharks cannot swim backwards. This is because:

They don't have air bladders which other classes of fish would use to control motion by adding air to move forwards and releasing air to move backwards.

Shark fins are not designed to rotate in a way that counters their forward thrust so they cannot propel themselves backwards.

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🦈shark🦈

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✨ 🎄CHRISTMAS 🎄✨

✨🦩 FLAMINGO 🦩 ✨

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Whalermelon sharks 🍉🦈

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join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us join us

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you sure?!?