Nine 'amazing' skills sharks have developed over more than 450 million years

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Author, Jocelyn Timperley, Sofia Quaglia, Katherine Latham and Stephen Dowling, Role, BBC

Published 5 hours ago

Reading time: 5 minutes

Sharks belong to the class of apex predators at the top of the food chain, and what many do not know is that they share many traits with humans.

Sharks are among the original vertebrate predators on Earth, and they have survived the five major mass extinctions, including the Permian-Triassic extinction or 'The Great Dying' which wiped out most life on Earth, including about 90 percent of marine life.

So, sharks have managed to survive, asserting their presence across the oceans, and over millions of years sharks have succeeded in developing a number of amazing traits, here we mention nine of them.

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Ability to count

Some may think that sharks are mere mindless predators, driven by survival instinct that makes them voracious; but scientific research has revealed otherwise, showing that sharks are skilled and capable of learning.

Sharks show ability to distinguish between subtle differences in sounds, as well as between geometric patterns and colors.

In a famous experiment, 'bamboo sharks' were able to use their memory of geometric shapes and optical illusions for about a full year. They also showed ability to distinguish between quantities – for example, distinguishing between three objects and five of the same type, or between four and seven (but not between close numbers like four and five).

Musical taste

A species of shark known as 'Port Jackson sharks' naturally prefer to live on the bottom, yet they have succeeded in challenging that nature and were able to float to a specific level in tanks upon hearing music in exchange for a food reward.

Sharks were observed to prefer jazz music compared to other types of classical music, according to an experiment conducted by researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney.

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Caption: Many think great white sharks are solitary creatures, but the truth is they have preferred friends

Belly button

Some sharks lay eggs, and some, including 'bull sharks' and 'hammerhead sharks', carry their embryos in the womb and feed them via an umbilical cord, as is the case with humans.

For weeks or months after birth, baby sharks still have a belly button until the umbilical cord wound from birth heals.

However, there are sharks that neither lay eggs nor give live birth; instead, their embryos grow in eggs that hatch while still inside the mother's body, and this gestation period can last up to about two full years - among these species is the 'spiny dogfish shark'.

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Sibling rivalry in the womb

Embryos of the 'sand tiger shark' find themselves facing a struggle for survival from the beginning while still in their mothers' wombs.

The female sand tiger shark has two uteri, and in each uterus she carries about five embryos; these embryos in turn feed on each other until only one embryo remains in each uterus, in a process known as intrauterine cannibalism.

After devouring all its siblings in the womb, the 'victorious' embryo enjoys non-stop meals of unfertilized eggs that the mother continues to produce until birth, by which time the embryo has become strong.

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Preferred friends

They wrong sharks when they describe them as tending to be solitary.

Grey reef sharks, for example, enjoy appearing in groups of the same species over seasons.

Lemon sharks also prefer to live in groups, and acquire skills from each other through social interactions – such as ways to find food and ways to avoid other predators.

Lemon sharks prefer to appear in groups of similar size and especially those with prior acquaintance.

Even large great white sharks sometimes develop preferred friends, despite a prevailing belief in their tendency to be solitary – two sharks named Simon and Jekyll were seen traveling together a distance of six thousand kilometers without separating.

Caption: The streamlined skin of sharks enables them to move quickly

Skin covered with dermal denticles

Shark skin is one of the remarkable phenomena in the biological world.

In the 18th century, craftsmen in Italy used shark skin to smooth the edges of precious Stradivarius violins.

In the Victorian era in Britain, shark skin was used to decorate cabinets.

Instead of traditional scales, shark skin is covered with small dermal denticles that help them move smoothly in water, reducing aerodynamic drag.

If you run your hand over this skin in the opposite direction, you will feel as if you are rubbing rough sandpaper.

Sharks sometimes tend to rub their skin against unfamiliar objects, as if to test those objects or taste them even though they may not be food.

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Sensing pulses

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Sharks have eight senses; in addition to the five human senses, sharks have three super senses that enable them to measure water pressure or electrical voltage, down to measuring the Earth's magnetic field.

There are rows of pores on the sides of a shark's body filled with sensory cells, thanks to which these fish can detect vibrations in their surroundings.

Pores covering a shark's body act as sensory cells, allowing these fish to detect the low-frequency electric fields emitted by other creatures, enabling them to detect prey even if buried in sand in pitch darkness.

There is a series of these sensory cells known as 'Ampullae of Lorenzini' which act as both electrical and magnetic receptors.

Each shark's head carries hundreds of thousands of sensitive nerve cells, which help the shark detect electrical impulses produced by muscle contractions of living organisms in its vicinity – such as any beating heart for example.

Sharks also use their ability to measure the Earth's magnetic field to travel thousands of miles across the oceans.