Sharp Shark Sex.

There is something particularly sinister in a shark’s appearance. The sight of his ugly triangular fin lazily cutting zigzags in the surface of the sea, and then submerging to become a hidden menace, suggests a malevolent spirit. The idea that they are ‘brutish and unrelenting’ goes way beyond perception, yet shark attacks are an exotic rarity the modest threat they pose to us, and the grave threat we pose to them. TheoTait states that many scientists don’t like to talk about shark sex, they worry it will only reinforce the popular perception that these creatures are brutish and unrelenting. Larger male sharks have to bite or trap the females to keep them around during courtship; the process is so violent that, come the mating season, female nurse sharks will stay in sha llow water with their reproductive openings pressed firmly to the sea floor. Otherwise they risk falling prey to roaming bands of males who will take turns inserting their claspers penis in her. Biologists can tell when a female has been mating because her skin will be raw or bleeding. Fear and hatred of sharks are powerful forces - reinforced by movies like Jaws. Sharks were swimming the seas before our continents took shape, while the dinosaurs were still around; They are carnivores, and the ones we’re most fascinated by are the most rapacious predators, right up at the top of the food chain. The big species that prey on marine mammals - the bull shark, which lives close inshore and up rivers, eats everything from dolphins to small sharks and, on occasion, horses – and has ‘the highest level of testosterone of any animal on earth. Meanwhile, to supply the shark fin soup trade alone, an estimated 73 million sharks are killed each year. Sharks are facing an extinction crisis; they will be mostly wiped out becoming little more than a folk memory.. Who is the predator man or shark??