FYI: Sharks Have Feelings Too

Let's face it: When some dickhole shark is really set on thrashing the last bits of life from your body, it's hard to empathize. Watching your extremities disappear like so many buckets of chum isn't so much a time for interspecies comradery. It can even be a very stressful and confusing experience, and you may reflexively want imagine the thing currently eating you as just that: a very bloodthirsty, unrelenting thing.

But sharks have feelings too. And, according to a study published Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, sharks even display distinct personalities. This is based on observations made of Heterodontus portusjacksoni sharks inhabiting the harbor waters off of Sydney—an area collectively known as Port Jackson—by researchers from Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia.

Differences in shark personalities were probed by the Australian biologists using two different methods. The first is an assessment of shark boldness. Here, sharks are presented with a novel and potentially dangerous habitat and are given the option to either go out and explore or hang back under cover. Some of the Port Jackson sharks just went for it, but others mellowed in safety.

The second personality-probing method is based on measuring the stress responses of sharks held outside of water (which I guess is like holding a land-creature underwater, which is about the most stressful thing imaginable). Some sharks freak out more than others and this tells biologists that the sharks may not all be the same underneath that thick skin.

Crucially, the shark responses seen in the two experiments were correlated. Sharks that tended to behave the same way when presented with the weird habitat tended to the behave the same way when forced to endure dry land.

"The strong link between boldness and stress response commonly found in teleosts was also evident in this study, providing evidence of proactive-reactive coping styles in H. portusjacksoni," the study reports. "These results demonstrate the presence of individual personality differences in sharks for the first time."

"Understanding how personality influences variation in elasmobranch behaviour such as prey choice, habitat use and activity levels is critical to better managing these top predators which play important ecological roles in marine ecosystems."