Sharks have been around for eons -- about 420 million years. So it's really no surprise that all that time in the water helped them find their way around.
Just as I could find my way to my favorite falafel stand blindfolded, sharks have an innate ability to remember the location of the best feeding grounds.
Researchers from the University of Hawaii used sonar and satellite technology to track two species of sharks -- tiger sharks and Galapagos sharks -- over several years. They found that the tiger shark seems to memorize where it has had consistently good meals, and then return to that spot over and over, despite traveling from thousands of miles away.
Galapagos sharks, however, never strayed very far from the feeding grounds at all.
Tiger sharks might also use internal clocks to guide their movements, since their arrival at one popular feeding ground always coincided with the albatross hatch. Because these internal "maps" are built through individual exploration, researchers said each tiger shark has a unique combination of feeding sites.
"To more fully understand their ecological role, we need to know which habitats these sharks utilize, how frequently they move between atolls, how deep they range and how extensively they travel into the adjacent pelagic environment," the researchers wrote. "Such knowledge is required for better informed management of both these sharks and their endangered prey species."
The study is published online in the journal Marine Biology.
Image from Flickr.
Tags: Animal Behavior, Animals, Fish, Food, Marine Life
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