Shark giving Birth in the Ocean

An Oceanic Shark giving birth was photographed for the first time by Marine biologists off the coast of the Philippines.

Image © A. E. Bicskos Kaszo

The unique photo of the free-swimming oceanic Thresher shark giving birth, was taken by Simon Oliver from the University of Chester,

In a paper Oliver describes:

At 0628 hrs [on April 4, 2013], during a biological survey of Monad Shoal…we observed a large female pelagic thresher shark swimming back and forth across a cleaning station in an agitated state. We were unable to decipher the cause of the shark’s distress from our observation post 15 m away, although it was evident that cleaner wrasse were taking bites from its pelvic region. We observed the shark for a total of 4 min, during which we took its photograph for identification purposes. The shark then left the cleaning station and was not observed again. Later, when we processed the photograph for analysis, it revealed the head of a pup emerging from the shark’s cloaca.

Thresher Sharks kill prey with tail:

via io9