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Despite the notoriety of the infamous "Baby Shark" song, many of us do not actually know what a real baby shark looks like.
Now, a TikTok video shared by Alessia Lavigne, zoologist and science communicator, shows the pocket-sized predators wiggling in their egg cases in a movement that one user described as "twerking." "That's Sharkira," another user wrote. "I'll see myself out."
The video, which Lavigne posted to her TikTok page, @turtle_eggsplorer has been watched over 5 million times, receiving hundreds of comments and thousands of likes.
The footage was taken at Aquarium Barcelona in Spain, where the baby sharks are held in an egg "kindergarten." Lavigne told Newsweek that it was quite rare to come across eggs like this in the wild. "It's more common to find empty egg cases—these will often wash up on the shore," she added.
These washed-up shark eggs are sometimes called mermaid's purses and can easily be mistaken for a piece of seaweed. The size will vary between different shark species, but Lavigne said that they are usually only about 4 inches long.
It is unclear exactly which shark species the eggs are from, but they either belong to the nursehound or the lesser spotted dogfish as those are the two species held in the tank. These are both relatively small species, rarely exceeding 5.5 and 3.5 feet, respectively.
"The lesser spotted dogfish and the nursehound are in the same genus of catsharks, and their egg cases can look really similar," Lavigne said. "That's why it can be quite tricky to tell [which species is present] from this video."
The incubation time for the eggs varies between species and depends on the environment in which they are held. "With the lesser spotted dogfish, it can take anywhere between five and 11 months as it depends on the temperature of the water," Lavigne said. "It can be very difficult to know exactly how long the eggs have been incubating and at what point they are at if you haven't been there every step of the way."
Lavigne is a zoologist and researcher at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. Her work centers around turtle and tortoise conservation and egg development.
Growing up in the Seychelles, Lavigne developed an interest in the natural world at a very young age. Her first job was as an assistant field researcher for the marine conservation group, which gave her hands on experience with sea turtles. "One of our duties was to excavate nests after the incubation period to see what had happened: hatchling success; how many hatched; how many didn't; and we would open up those ones that didn't to understand what went wrong."
It was there that Lavigne began asking the questions that would eventually lead to her Master's project, and her upcoming Ph.D. "We would open these eggs, and some were just completely undeveloped, and I just thought, 'What happened here?'" Lavigne said. "There's just this assumption that it was unfertilized or it just hasn't developed. But I always asked, 'How do we know this?'"
Now, Lavigne and her supervisor, Nicola Hemmings, have developed a novel method to study unhatched turtle and tortoise eggs to determine why they have not developed. By understanding why these eggs are failing, conservation management strategies and captive breeding programs can be improved to help save these threatened and endangered species.
Lavigne started her TikTok account to share her research with others. "I was trying to show a different side of science," she said. "To show that it's something inspiring, that it's very cool, and just to get people curious and talking about these situations."
Some of her most-popular videos have been her egg dissections, several of which have exceeded 1 million views. "That's always surprised me," Lavigne said. "How dissecting an egg gets so many people interested and talking and commenting."
@turtle_eggsplorer Replying to @legend27205 A failed red footed tortoise egg is dissected to extract the embryo that passed during development. My research looks at failed turtle and tortoise eggs around the world to understand the causes behind hatching failure. Eggs can fail for many reasons and understanding them can help us create solutions to avoid these issues. Together with zoos and wildlife conservation groups, we aim to create these solutions for threatened populations in the wild as well as those in captive breeding programs so that we can help turtles and tortoises around the world fight against their current extinction crisis #turtleeggs #egg #eggs #yolk #dissection #dissecting #hatchingeggs #hatchingegg #extraction #extractions #biology #stemtok #redfootedtortoise #learnontiktok #tortoiseegg #scienceexperiments #embryo #tortoise #turtle #savetheturtles #extractionsatisfaciton
♬ Rolling in the deep - ??????????? ?
Lavigne's interest does not stop at turtles, and her videos often feature other species to spark curiosity about the natural world in her followers. This includes sharks.
"There is that stigma about sharks being scary, but I like to challenge that," Lavigne said. "Because sharks are thought of as an indicator species, it means their presence reflects how healthy their overall ecosystem is. So, the more sharks you see, the healthier the ecosystem is."
This is because sharks are top predators, meaning they keep their prey's population in check. This prevents any one species from getting out of hand and maintains diversity within the ecosystem. "It's actually more scary if you don't see sharks around because it means the ecosystem is collapsing," Lavigne said. "Shark-infested waters are actually a blessing."
About the writer
Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more