DIVE LOG Australasia

Sub-adult females need to bulk up before they can reproduce.

SUMMARY 1. Egg laying sharks are Oviparous Live birth techniques 2. Eggs retained babies born live Vivaporous 3. Eggs retained babies born live and nourished with a yolk sac placenta 4. IntraUterine cannibalism

1. Oophagy eggs fed to foetus 2. Biggest baby eats siblings. Footnote: Recent research on Manta rays by Andrea Marshall of the Marine Megafauna Foundation has discovered that they are ovo-vivaporous. The male has much larger teeth than the female and more of them. He uses them to bite the females left wing to hold her for mating purposes. GESTATION PERIOD They are notoriously slow developers taking an average of 12 months for babies to develop. Some species such as the Blue shark can take two years. The Greenland shark is thought to take 8 to 18 years.

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DIVE LOG Australasia #408 - October ‘24