Nurse Shark

Photo: Pascal GIRARD · © all rights reserved

Tawny nurse sharks gather at The Shipyard in unusually large numbers, resting communally in sandy gullies through the day before dispersing across the reef at dusk to hunt invertebrates. Their social resting behaviour is not fully understood but may confer thermoregulatory benefits or reduce predation risk through the confusion effect. Individual sharks return to the same resting sites year after year, making this aggregation an ideal long-term population monitoring resource.