Scientists have made an extraordinary discovery about sharks that can walk. Florida Atlantic University researchers have discovered that young epaulette sharks can walk out and into the water thanks to their paddle-shaped fins.
Shark species endemic to Australia’s southern Great barrier Reef can walk
The Hemiscyllium ocellatum species inhabits coral beds such as the southern Great Barrier Reef of Australia and can reach lengths of around three feet. Epaulette sharks, according to researchers, have another astonishing achievement in addition to their extraordinary capacity to move about on their paddle-shaped fins.
Epaulette sharks frequently encounter brief moments of increased CO2 and hypoxia, or low oxygen, because reef beds face oxygen fluctuations with the receding tide. However, the researchers discovered that sharks could completely survive for two hours without oxygen! Furthermore, they don’t seem to be harmed by this duration of total oxygen deprivation. Epaulette sharks can also endure water temperatures that are substantially greater than those of most other species that require little oxygen.
The latest study examined the variations in how sharks “walk” and swim as they grow. Due to the significant early-life bodily changes experienced by epaulette sharks, they anticipated that these movements would alter throughout time.
Young epaulette sharks maintain their movements across the development.
The study discovered that neonatal and young epaulette sharks maintain typical slow-moving, faster walking, and swimming movements throughout their development, notwithstanding these dramatic changes in their body shapes. Moreover, they kept the same general speed, fin rotations, axial flexing, and tail beat amplitude and frequency in all these life phases.
The locomotor abilities are essential to survival for a tiny seabed mesopredator that hides in small reef holes to evade aquatic and aerial predators. Future research should focus on how these characteristics could well be connected to their ability to maintain physiological function under adverse conditions, such as those brought on by climate change.
According to the researchers, the next stage in figuring out how these peculiar predators might endure upcoming climatic shocks is to investigate the relationship between locomotion and biological functions required to thrive in severe conditions.
