ZEBRA SHARK EMBRYO FOOTAGE RELEASED The Deep is excited to announce video evidence of a baby zebra shark growing inside a recently laid egg, from our female zebra shark. Following recent mating behaviour, The Deep’s Curator was delighted to find a zebra shark egg in our Endless Oceans display which had a yolk inside, leading to very careful observation from the team to see if it was fertile. Katy Duke, Curator at The Deep continues: “Our zebra sharks have been laying eggs for a while, but until they are fully mature, they tend to only be ‘practice’ eggs with nothing inside. “This is the first year we have had an egg complete with a yolk and this recently filmed footage confirmed our suspicions that we had a baby shark growing inside. “The baby is only visible via a method called ‘candling’ where we shine a torch behind the egg underwater. This allows us to see inside the dark brown casing and you can clearly see a baby attached to the yolk moving around. “Although we are still a long way from hatching, we are hopeful that things will progress well. Zebra sharks eggs take around 6 or 7 months to hatch which would take us into early next year.” The Deep is home to a male and female zebra shark, and now mature they are expected to lay eggs each year. Male sharks grow up to 1.8m in length with females coming in at 1.7m. youtube/watch?v=CZVQMQqDkmo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUHiplnH3zfUj9Ca1X10kAtw
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 12:44:17 +0000