Thousands of Sharks Found Sleeping ‘Like a Carpet’ on the Ocean Floor

Thousands of schloofing sharks were spotted successful an underwater sleepover enactment disconnected the seashore of Australia.

The shiver consisted of Port Jackson sharks, a species that inhabits Australia’s confederate coastal waters. The sharks are known for their somewhat bizarre appearance, with 2 salient ridges moving from their blunt noses to the backs of their heads.  The sharks, which tin turn up to 5.5 feet (1.6 meters) successful length, are nocturnal and walk their nights hunting for squid, octopuses, and crustaceans. Unlike galore different shark species, Port Jackson sharks are not considered a threatened oregon endangered species.

The sharks were resting astatine the bottommost of Beagle Marine Park, an aquatic reserve successful the Bass Strait, the assemblage of h2o that separates Australia from Tasmania to its south. A probe squad from the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) spotted the sharks during a caller expedition. Jacquomo Monk, a elder probe chap with IMAS and the expedition’s leader, said successful a statement that the scientists had been scanning the water seabed with a remotely operated underwater robot erstwhile it came crossed the sharks “tightly packed similar a carpet dispersed crossed the seafloor,” immoderate 213 feet (65 meters) beneath the surface.

The sharks were a welcome, but not unexpected, show for the probe team, who had antecedently seen a akin gathering six years agone during different expedition. The researchers had returned to spot however conditions successful the parkland had changed successful that time.

“We had been hoping to spot the sharks again connected this survey,” said Monk.  “Coming upon them doubly successful a 3,000 quadrate kilometer [1,158 quadrate mile] parkland is similar uncovering a needle successful a haystack.”

What hadn’t been antecedently noticed was that each the sharks were female, which “poses much questions than answers for us, but we cognize that the males and females of this taxon often unrecorded apart, but erstwhile mating,” said Monk. “We don’t cognize precisely wherefore the females are here. Perhaps they are feasting connected the section delicacy—doughboy scallops—before the agelong travel northbound to laic their eggs. Seeing them again does archer america that the country is important to them.”

A swarm of sharks was the crippled to Netflix’s astonishment summertime deed Under Paris, but dissimilar the mutant makos from the movie, Port Jackson sharks are not a menace to humans. Even connected the precise uncommon occasions they bash bite, the worst that happens is simply a bruise and torn wetsuit.