Is this Shark Sick, Sleeping, Dying? The truth about the way sharks breathe...

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the channel... Let's dive right in and answer the question... Are these sharks sick? Dying? "I thought all sharks have to swim to survive."
Today we are going to talk about sharks and breathing.... Most people think all sharks have to swim to survive... but the majority of the more than 500 species don't have to. That's right.
These lemon sharks and nurse sharks appear to be just chilling on the ocean floor... but don't be fooled... they are hard at work using a process called buccal pumping to keep their gills oxygenated.... They pull water in through their mouths and pump the water over their gills using their cheek muscles...
When they are - let's just say resting on the sea floor - friendly remoras can come in and help clean the lemon shark's bodies of parasites - it's a symbiotic alliance.... Remoras get a free ride and a delectable snack.
It also allows a relationship between sharks and people - we can come in gently and carefully after a long briefing and pet the shark. Does the shark like it... well in some cases.. Shark diving pioneer Jim Abernethy says the sharks will actually move closer to a person when they are giving the shark affection...
Okay - back to breathing.... A few dozen sharks use obligate ram ventilation to breathe... that sounds like a mouthful - but the bottom line is they must keep swimming to survive...a few examples of this are - great white sharks or white sharks, whale sharks, mako sharks and let's not forget hammerhead sharks... Hammerheads are very sensitive to the slightest pause - which makes this species challenging for scientists to study...
By the way - off the Island of Cocos in the Pacific... Hammerheads have to swim into a pit crew of cleaning fish to have their parasites picked away.
And one more note...
Let's take a look at the sand tiger... It has the remarkable ability to alternate between buccal pumping and ram ventilation... Adapting to their circumstances with fluidity...
With more than 500 species of sharks roaming the ocean depths... and sometimes rivers... we're talking to you bull sharks.... There's always more information to uncover... and share with you fin-credible fans. So thanks for watching and subscribing... Space Shark on KZbin - SpaceShark Earth on Instagram.
And speaking of uncovering... let's look at the world of tiger shark vision... in this video...