Comments on: New research delves into shark smarts

By: mkultra

mkultra — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

alllie,

I also joined this thread to mention Dr. Clark… she is a real pioneer into shark intelligence and behavioral studies… even back into the ’50s, ’60s and beyond.

For a lady born in 1922, that’s pretty amazing.

By: djfatsostupid

djfatsostupid — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I hope that when researching shark intelligence they keep L.L. Cool J close by.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

“But sharks land above the line associated with these lower vertebrates. They’ve been independently evolving for half a billion years”

As opposed to “dependently” evolving?

Independently evolved is something I would think would apply to an animal existing in an environment relatively isolated from the rest of the world, e.g. Australia, or the Galapagos. How does that word apply to sharks which live in all the oceans?

By: alllie

alllie — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to put a plug in for Eugenie Clark, the Shark Lady. She’s gotten pretty old but I really enjoyed her shark books and her love of sharks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenie_Clark

By: Matt Staggs

Matt Staggs — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Now I deeply regret not having “Mindless death fish from hell” as my Boing Boing handle.

By: benher

benher — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This looks like a job for “Bigger Jaws!”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

At least sharks don’t trawl massive seine nets that destroy entire schools of fish, or dump munitions, old chemical weapons, radioactive waste, trash, etc into the ocean. They’ve never conducted dozens of nuclear tests that wiped out entire islands and left radioactive hot spots for decades. They don’t spill massive amounts of oil in the ocean or acidify the water with CO2 or kill for trivial bits of an animal that they don’t really need (shark fin soup). So all in all I’d say the real killers in the water are the two legged animals.

By: Pipenta

Pipenta — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone who underestimates cephs is probably a little shy of gray matter themselves.

By: Felton

Felton — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

It’ll be quite a blow to my self-esteem if it turns out they can beat me at chess.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shark feeding isn’t the disorganised mob frenzy it appears to be at first sight; I recall seeing some research published around the turn of the century that observed a very, very polite hierarchy and careful ‘courtesy’ allowing others to go first.

Put simply, reef sharks and hammerheads are too well-armed and, while a three-metre long shark is entitled to a degree of deference from a two-metre shark, either one is thoroughly capable of ripping the other open if it came to a fightâ€¦ So fights are rare, and sharks have evolved conflict-avoidance strategies and the necessary communications skills that go with them.

Which, in turn, needs brains. Not, perhaps the brains associated with collaborative hunting strategies (see dolphins, wolves, chimpanzees and humans); but then again, I may have missed more recent researchâ€¦ Although I suspect that very few researchers ever get close to such a dangerous subject.

By: Francois Comeau-Lapointe

Francois Comeau-Lapointe — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

One thing to say: I LOVE sharks!!! They are awesome creatures. It’s sad their environnement is being destroyed year after year, and it’s sad how they are being hunted and slaughtered.

-FranÃ§ois Comeau-Lapointe.