Skip to main content

Personality tests - for sharks



Macquarie University in Australia think that sharks have personalities. Behavioural ecologist, Culum Brown, conducted the first personality tests of wild sharks, revealing that they have distinct personalities (The Canberra Times, 27 May 2016). The results were published in the Journal of Fish Biology on 26 May 2016.

Associate Professor Brown conducted the personality tests on 17 wild Port Jackson sharks from eastern Australia. The Port Jackson shark is common, small, not dangerous, and easy to work with. They are benthic – their teeth are designed for crushing sea shells and crustaceans (crabs and lobsters). Therefore their teeth are not razor-sharp, and they are not designed for gripping and ripping human flesh. These traits made them suitable for testing. The sharks were 1.5 metres (5 feet) long and weighed up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds).

Brown conducted personality tests on two personality characteristics: boldness (whether the individual sharks took risks) and resilience to stress. Boldness was tested by releasing each shark into an unfamiliar environment, but in the safety of a cave. The researchers tested the time it took for each shark to emerge from the cave. Their actions and behaviours were recorded on four separate occasions for each shark. To test resilience to stress the researchers lifted each shark out of the water for one minute before returning them to the water. They did this twice for each shark. They recorded each shark’s movement and agitation (a stressed shark moves a lot), and the length of time taken for each shark to return to a normal state.

The results showed that smaller sharks were less bold than larger sharks – they were more shy. Smaller sharks were also more stressed than the larger sharks. The researchers expected male sharks to be bolder, and less stressed than females. In just about every animal that has ever been looked at, Brown said, males tend to be bolder than females. However, in the shark personality tests, there were no personality differences between the sexes. The researchers think it may be due to the small sample for the experiment.

Overall, the researchers noted that the sharks had individual traits with their own distinct way of responding to stress and unfamiliar environments.

Image of Port Jackson shark by Juliana Kadar.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/technology/sci-tech/sharks-have-personalities--just-like-us-20160520-gp034k.html


MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more