Lauran Coskrey asked, updated on December 25th, 2022; Topic:
shark
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and about that pair of penises, Discovery explains that sharks have “two penis-like organs called claspers,” and that “shark sex is extremely aggressive.”
Male sharks have developed a special set of sex teeth that only males have and only in mating season, mind. These teeth are for biting down and holding on to the female's pectoral fin during intercourse (lest they escape?). The love bites marks left on the females back tell quite a story of violent sex.
One way or another, how does a shark mate? All male sharks have claspers, extensions of their pelvic fins used to transfer sperm. Once inserted, the male expels sperm into the female along with seawater, and the eggs are fertilized inside the female's body. Some sharks are egg-laying, while others are live-bearing.
In spite of that, why do sharks bite while mating?
In terms of the actual act, you can imaging that it's a bit difficult to mate underwater with no hands or limbs to stabilize your movement. That's why many male sharks are observed biting the females during the mating process in order to stabilize them during reproduction.
Do sharks have vaginas?
When a woman is aroused, squalene is secreted allowing the clitoris and labia to swell up and prepare the body for sex. In sharks, however, squalene is far less sexy. The compound is found in the livers of sharks and is believed by some cultures to have miraculous effects.
On rare occasions, during mating season among sharks, 'mating scars' appear on female sharks' bodies caused by the males holding onto them. ... These scars are mostly deeper cuts and punctures, indicating a more forceful motivation such as coercive mating from the male's side.
Over a lifetime, in fact, sharks may go through thousands of teeth. ... Other scientists believe that the big sharks, like some other species, change sex when they reach a certain size: males become females. The switch may ensure survival by allowing the largest, most experienced sharks to give birth to young.
Shark-dolphin hybrids are impossible. It's true that sharks and dolphins look similar in many ways, but that's because they are a product of convergent evolution, where two genetically distant animals who live similar lifestyles start to look and act in similar ways. But sharks are fish and dolphins are mammals.
Oviparity: Oviparous sharks lay eggs, which are protected by an egg case. These egg cases are sometimes called "mermaid's purses." ... Port Jackson sharks do the same thing, carrying the egg cases in their mouth until they find a safe spot. That's about the extent of an oviparous shark's parental commitment, though.
In large ocean fish species, females are almost always bigger than males, because they need more girth to carry their young, Fischer noted. (See great white shark pictures.) ... It's just another adult male they've tagged."
Shark embryos cannibalize their littermates in the womb, with the largest embryo eating all but one of its siblings. ... That finding suggests the cannibalism seen in these embryos is a competitive strategy by which males try to ensure their paternity.
What animals are unisex? They include sea stars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and sand dollars. Some of the most well known echinoderms are also hermaphrodites. Certain species of sea star, like the common cushion star (Asterina gibbosa), are sequential hermaphrodites — changing gender from male to female.
Female sharks can reproduce without having sex, scientists have found. A female hammerhead shark has given birth without mating with a male and its offspring has no paternal DNA. This is the first scientific report of asexual reproduction in sharks. Female sharks can reproduce without having sex, scientists have found.
But because they are only made from one gamete , not two, parthenogenetic offspring are more closely related to their mother than normal babies are, Dudgeon said. Because parthenogenesis in sharks happens only in females and females cannot pass on a Y chromosome, it also means the resulting offspring are always female.
A male false killer whale named I'anui Kahei shared an aquatic pen with Punahele, a typical female Atlantic bottlenose dolphin. ... Although scientists know that false killer whales and bottlenose dolphins swim together in the open ocean, interspecies mating among cetaceans was rare at the time of Keikaimalu's birth.
Answer: Yes, some shark species can hybridize, which means two distinct species of sharks can breed and produce offspring that's a genetic mix of both species! ... A team of Australian researchers documented 57 individual sharks that were actually hybrids between common blacktip sharks and Australian blacktip sharks.
A whole bunch of sharks give birth to live baby sharks, called pups. Mako sharks, bull sharks, lemon sharks, and blue sharks are a few examples of sharks that are born live. Great white sharks usually have only one or two pups at a time, but some of the other sharks can have a litter with up to 20 pups.
Even for 16-foot (4.8 metre) great whites, successfully excreting waste can take a bit of effort. A billowing cloud of shark poop can be a scientific gold mine, as it holds chemical clues about what the animal has been eating, its stress levels and even where it hails from.
The sharks behave aggressively during mating, and afterwards the females deliberately avoid the males. Dr Domeier added: “Male sharks bite the head, flank or pectoral fin of females during the mating ritual, but certainly these sharks are biting each other out of aggression as well.
The question: Can sharks be twins and stay together? ... Technically yes, they're all related, but according to NBC News, a 2013 study found that a single litter of shark pups can have anywhere from one to five dads — so at least some of the time, they're only half-siblings.