Underwater footage from off the coast of the Bahamas is the first to capture the oceanic whitetip shark's mating ritual on camera.
In the Bahamas, the sharks have greatly benefited from protective measures adopted by the government, including the banning of long-line fishing in 1993 and a ban on shark fishing and shark trade in 2011, Talwar said.
The research team caught sharks with a single hook, letting the animal tire itself out and then bringing it to the boat. They moved as quickly as possible within a few minutes to do tests and ultrasounds before releasing the shark. Although most of the sharks caught were females, the few males they examined provided valuable information, Gelsleichter said, because the reproductive season can be tracked in the fluctuating testosterone levels of male sharks.
They also documented other mating behaviors such as parallel swimming, following, shielding, nosing and biting. Their chance video encounter was the only time they documented the courtship behavior called"circle-back," where the male circles around behind the female, possibly to investigate clues from her scent in the water.
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