sharks<\/a> playing?<\/p>\nStudy authors say that to claim that an interaction is \u201cplay,\u201d the behavior needs to be contrasted with \u201cnormal\u201d behavior, trigger a sense of reward in the brain of the animal, and happen when the animal is in a relaxed, unstressed context. Since the study didn\u2019t rigorously address those points, they understood why, according to them, journal reviewers told them to remove the word from their paper.<\/p>\n
Still, that doesn\u2019t mean sharks can\u2019t play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ask me casually, that’s what we thought they were doing,\u201d says Patrick Sun, professor of ecology at Biola University and co-author of the study.\u00a0\u201cWe thought they were playing, and I think if we designed a more rigorous study we would prove that they’re playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
(First-of-its-kind footage reveals 3 endangered sharks mating\u2014all at the same time)<\/p>\n
A tank full of toys<\/b><\/p>\n
Virtually nothing is known about play behavior in sharks. In general, on a behavioral level, \u201cmost research still centers on predation, and only recently have we begun to learn more about mating. But we still know very little about sharks\u2019 social behavior, communication, cognition, navigation, daily routines, and, of course, play,\u201d says\u00a0Autumn Smith, a shark ecologist at Biola University in California, and lead author of the study.<\/p>\n
To test the waters of potential shark play, Smith and her team conducted experiments at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, California. There, the team worked on a tank where 13 individuals from four different species co-exist: horn sharks (Heterodontus francisci), swell sharks (Cephaloscyllium ventriosum), leopard sharks (Triakis semifasciata) and a California skate (Caliraja inornata).<\/p>\n
Once a week, when the sharks and the skate got feed, the researchers would go to the aquarium and fill the tank with toys such as plastic squids, plastic rings and thin, heavy tubes that sink to the bottom of the tank. They would do that one hour before the staff started feeding the fish. Then, when it was feeding time, they removed all the toys from the tank. 30 minutes after the sharks and the skate finished eating, they would put the toys back in.<\/p>\n
During both sessions, the team recorded the animals in the tank interacting with the toys. They kept doing this procedure once a week for 12 weeks during 2022.<\/p>\n
The observations revealed an unseen side of sharks.\u00a0\u201cI was genuinely surprised how much interactions there were,\u201d says Smith.<\/p>\n
During the first sessions, the sharks and the skate didn\u2019t interact much with toys, but as time went by, they became more and more interested.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven within the species, there were personalities that started to develop,\u201d says Smith. Some individuals were more motivated to interact with the toys while others showed less interest.<\/p>\n
Some even seemed to be possessive with a specific toy and hang on top or under it. Among all species, leopard sharks were the ones that interacted more with the toys.<\/p>\n
The sharks and the skate also interacted with toys more after feeding. This hints towards the idea that \u201cthere is other motivations within them, a different cognitive basis that aren’t hunger,\u201d says Smith. \u201cThat’s something that we’re trying to figure out more about.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Watch orcas team up to hunt great white sharks in rare video)<\/p>\n
Play or not play? That is the question<\/b><\/p>\n
But are these sharks playing?<\/p>\n
Elisabetta Palagi, a comparative ethologist at the University of Pisa who wasn\u2019t involved in the research, thinks it’s hard to say whether what the sharks were doing can be defined as \u201cplay or if it’s an exploratory behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palagi also points out that, after some time, the shark motivation toward the toys seems to decrease. She thinks this points more toward an exploratory behavior where the sharks, after exploring the objects for some time and realizing they don\u2019t provide food or anything else, lose interest in them.<\/p>\n
(Rare image of great white shark captured off the coast of Maine<\/a>)<\/p>\nWhen you are dealing with species so different from us, whose behavior is often difficult to understand and is understudied, it is better to maintain “a more cautious approach,” says Palagi, adding that a longer observation might have revealed something more about the behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn’t say necessarily that they have shown this is playing but I do think it raises some interesting questions about, potentially, is that what’s going on?\u201d says Yannis Papastamatiou, a predator ecologist at Florida International University who wasn\u2019t involved in the study. \u201cI would say cautiously that there’s a lot we don’t understand about these animals,\u201d adds Papastamatiou.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have no problem using the word \u201cplay\u201d to describe dogs who fetch sticks or cats batting around…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":406870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[191870,191871,191872,159,2415,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-406869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-autumn-smith","9":"tag-biola-university","10":"tag-leopard-sharks","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sharks","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115618150021420437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}