Years-old April Fool's joke about fisherman 'Arnold Pointer' and shark resurfaces on Facebook

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Years-old April Fool's joke about fisherman 'Arnold Pointer' and shark resurfaces on Facebook
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❌An April Fool's story has circulated for years in Facebook posts that purportedly tell the true story of a fisherman named 'Arnold Pointer' befriending a shark named 'Cindy' But the story was first published in a French magazine as a joke in 2006

"I have been getting queries about this picture for over a decade now because of the false claims that went viral. The photos, as far as I remember, were captured over two decades ago in South Africa," he told AFP on March 20, 2023.

He said he had taken the photo of the man wearing a blue cap and white t-shirt and identified him as shark expert Michael Rutzen. Scholl said the man wearing a white cap and blue t-shirt in the other photo, which he did not take, was shark expert Morne Hardenberg.The identical photo was published on Hardenberg's Instagram profile.Scholl explained that the photos show researchers touching the shark's nose in order to elicit a jaw-opening reflex from the animal.

He believes sharks do this reflexively to protect their head and eyes, while other scientists think the touch overstimulates the animal's electro-receptors."The images are 100% real but the story is 1% real," Scholl concluded. "I leave the 1% about the story for the only reason that all of us who worked with white sharks have a connection to some of these sharks."

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