The Black Tip Reef Shark

The black tip reef shark is easily recognisable because of the black tip on it's pectoral (side) fins and dorsal fin. The black tip is very common and is often seen by divers and waders in India, Madagascar, South Africa, Australia and America. Although it is not usually aggressive, this shark is known to attack waders or divers that approach it too quickly. It is also known to bite peoples feet when they lie on rubber rings, inflatable chairs and other items such as these. Black tips are some of the most curious creatures on the planet, they are often to be found lying still in crevices as they don't need to swim to survive, all they have to do is pump sea-water over their gills.
Although they are more active at night, when they come out of their crevices to hunt anchovies, sardines and other large groups of schooling fish, they are often seen during the day gliding peacefully along through the gaps between tall rocks that the fish use as swimming roads or visiting cleaning stations to be relieved of their parasites. Black tips survive well in captivity and you can often see them in aquariums.
  Black tips are excellent hunters, they often form a group and chase fish onto beaches. They wriggle up the beaches and eat them. (Talk about fish out of water!!)

A playful black tip reef shark, curious of the diver and his camera.

An adult black tip, in honour of my Uncle Seamus who requested  black tips to be the next shark on the blog.

The Porbeagle Shark

The porbeagle shark can weigh up to 225kg (with the notable exception of the 7m terror you'll meet later) and can grow up to 3.7m (once again not counting the 7m terror). The porbeagle lives at depths of 370m below the surface except when feeding. It lives mainly in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea.
It feeds on mackerel and squid. If there are no mackerel or squid in it's territory (or the under-sea restaurant has run out due to a busy evening) it will eat cod, hake and flounders.
Like other mackerel sharks (great whites, makos, Salmon sharks...)it has to keep swimming to survive.
The porbeagle, like other mackerel sharks, is warm blooded which gives it increased muscle strength.

A porbeagle shark feeding

Poor Beagle (Porbeagle Shark)

Not long ago the seal population at Islay was being attacked viciously by a Porbeagle shark. It was decided that the shark needed to be captured.
The shark was 7m long almost two times the size of the average porbeagle (3.7m).
Fisherman Hamish Currie was sent to tag the shark but was forced to kill this monster from the same shark family as Jaws the great white, when it attacked and destroyed his steel toed boot and bit a hole in his boat!!

The 7m porbeagle shark having been reeled up onto the deck

The Snaggletooth Shark

The snaggletooth is a very rare shark.So rare that I only heard of it two days ago.Snaggletooth sharks are on the brink of extinction, they can reach up to 8ft (2.50m) in length and are found in the West Pacific and the Red Sea.
Snaggletooth sharks are fast swimmers and they use this speed to hunt rays, crabs, lobsters and other sharks (nurse, swell...).The shark itself is caught for it's fins and it's liver which contains vitamins.
This shark is a species of weasel shark which means that it tends to live in deep water.
I am struggling to find any other details on this shark.I shall update this post the moment I learn something new.Come back to this post soon, but in the meantime take a look at the video clip of the snaggletooth shark spotted at 100m down by some divers in the Red Sea.

-100m rare footage of snaggletooth shark

Goodbye Ron Taylor

Ron Taylor and his wife Valerie were two of the best marine biologists ever to have lived. Sadly that wonderful pair has become a lonely one:on the 9th of September 2012, Ron Taylor died having been ill with myeloid leukemia at the age of 78.
In his youth he was a world champion spear fisherman until he "looked down at the fish of different sizes, shapes and colours that had been caught and killed and thought:this is wrong" (as quoted by Ron Taylor in one of the last episodes of the TV series, Shadow of the Shark). He left the world of spear fishing at the same time as Valerie who was also a champion spear fisher, and the two of them married and became avid marine conservationists.
They made countless underwater documentaries and Ron was an innovator in underwater photography.
Together they led the Great Barrier Reef protection party, until in the 1980s it succeeded and a National Marine Park was made.
Ron and Valerie were the first to dive with sharks at night, the first to free dive with no cage amongst great white sharks and also discovered many types of sea creatures.
With their expert knowledge of sharks Ron and Valerie helped to create the terrifying scenes in the Spielberg film "Jaws". However they both regretted the backlash of hatred for sharks which was sparked by the film.
Those of you reading, please bow your heads for a moment and remember Ron Taylor.

Tiger Shark

The tiger shark is a known man-killer and is one of the biggest sharks in the sea. This fierce predator will eat anything it can get its teeth into : squid, dolphins, turtles, whales, tuna, mackerel, cod, lobsters, seals, porpoises, ... well you get the picture, they eat a lot!! Tiger sharks have even been known to eat rubbish floating on the surface and even bite holes in the back of small boats. If you have a weak stomach or feel sick at the thought of violence TURN AWAY NOW and do not read the words in red, if your still reading, this is one of the most horrible things you will ever hear: tiger sharks eat their own brothers and sisters...whilst still inside their mother!! This is a common thing for all sharks to do but it's pretty gruesome all the same. Tiger sharks are very clever for a non-human species, they gather at albatross nesting places every July and wait for the young seabirds to attempt to fly. The unsuccessful ones who fall in the water never get another chance to try it because they are immediately gobbled up by hungry tiger sharks who had been waiting eagerly in the shallows.
 Tiger sharks have stripes like those of a tiger when they are young (except they are grey-not white!!) but as they become older the stripes fade and people mistake them for another ferocious hunter; the great white.

A young tiger shark hunting for food.

An adult tiger shark. Note the loss of stripes.