AY Honors/Species Account/Negaprion brevirostris

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The lemon shark, Negaprion brevirostris, is a well studied shark belonging to the family Carcharhinidae.

Distribution and habitat

It is found mainly along the subtropical and tropical part of the Atlantic coast of N and S America.

Reproduction

Lemon sharks are viviparous, females giving birth to 4 to 17 young every other year in warm and shallow lagoons. The young have to fend for themselves and remain in shallow water near mangroves until they grow bigger. With increasing size, the sharks venture further away from their birth place. At maturity at a size of 1.5 to 2 m and an age of 12 to 15 years, they leave the shallow water and move into deeper waters more offshore. However, little is known from this life stage. Maximum recorded length and weight is 340 cm and 183 Kg.[1]

Recent genetical work by Drs Kevin Feldheim, Sonny Gruber and Mary Ashley may suggest that adult sharks move over hundreds of km to mate, or populations far apart may have been separated in recent time. Further research in this area would be of immense importance for the understanding of the lemon shark's breeding behaviour and ecology.

Importance to humans

Lemon sharks are a popular choice for study by scientists as they get on quite well in captivity, unlike many other species such as great whites, who die in captivity because they refuse food. The species is the best known of all sharks in terms of behaviour and ecology, mainly thanks to the enormous effort of Dr. Samuel Gruber at University of Miami who has been studying the lemon shark both in the field and in the laboratory for the past 40 years. The population around Bimini Islands in the western Bahamas, where Dr Gruber's field station Bimini Biological Field Station is situated, is probably the best known of all shark populations. It is currently experiencing a severe population decline and may disappear altogether due to destruction of the mangroves for construction of a golf resort.

See also

• List of sharks

References

• Template:IUCN2006 Database entry includes justification for why this species is near threatened
• Template:ITIS
• Template:FishBase species
• Washington Post, 2005, Aug. 22nd: "Scientists Fear Oceans on the Cusp Of a Wave of Marine Extinctions"

External links

• Lemon shark facts and pictures

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