Johann - counting Sharks in Moorea, and a new Paper!

Nice article!

This is quite obviously something we need to explore.

We do keep a census of our Blacktips and Whitetips at the 4m feeding station but it may be interesting to compare that with an aerial survey (see some of those Sharks in the drone footage here!) and also test our hypothesis that when the tide is very low, the Blacktips retire to the back of the reef.

So much to do so little time! :)

And there's this new paper!

I found the abstract an absolute abomination of technical hieroglyphic gibberish, and said so - but it really does appear that some aspects of science remain reserved for the initiated only, as even Johann's "popularization" remains rather obscure, at least to me.

I guess the whole exercise was aimed at finding out how fast those neonate Sharks evolve from drawing energy from reserves that have been provided by their parents (in this case = from the yolk sac and later, via the placenta) and are being stored in the liver and fatty tissue, to feeding independently. And later, the same analysis could shed light on shifts in diet as they progress from neonates to juveniles to subadults to adults.

And I gather that the paper comes to the conclusion that a) those shifts happen and that b) there are, unsurprisingly, differences among species, locations and even individuals.

Or maybe I didn't understand anything at all!

Johann? :)