'Although a grey nurse raises up to 80 embryos in her 2 uteruses, savage sibling rivalry means only 2 live to be born as 'pups', Nick Otway, a senior shark scientist, said yesterday. 'By the time the embryos reach about 10 centimetres they have a well-developed set of jaws. They turn around and eat each other, inside Mum'.
...With a team of colleagues, including Megan Storrie, a shark reproductive biologist, he plans to catch pregnant grey nurse sharks, harmlessly flush out their embryos before they can kill each other, and raise them in the safety of artificial uteruses - tubes inside tanks. The pups would be released after their normal 9- to 12-month gestation'.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Intra-uterine savagery
This story about baby Grey Nurse sharks eating each other inside their mum's uteruses (and the ingenious development of an artificial uterus to thwart this) made me stop, think and form mental images.
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1 comment:
fuzzflash, I don't get the point. What's the connection between eating each other and being born not made?
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