Sharks too may be social animals

New York: Far from being solitary animals, as they have been historically seen, sharks can actually form complex social network that are typically seen in mammals but rarely observed in fish, new research has found.

The researchers used acoustic tags to track the movements of over 300 individual Sand Tiger sharks and record shark-shark interactions over the course of a year. Sand Tiger sharks, top predators that live in coastal waters off the eastern US have experienced drastic declines in numbers over the past several decades.

Initial data from two individual sharks showed they encountered nearly 200 other Sand Tigers throughout the year, as well as several individuals from other shark species.These sharks exhibited fission-fusion social behaviour, meaning that the number of sharks in a group and the individuals that are part of the group change by location and time of year.

The researchers found that groups of Sand Tigers stay together for certain times of the year and fall apart during other times. They also found that Sand Tigers re-encounter the same sharks throughout the year.