Whilst waiting for the transfer boat to get off Cyrene Reef, Dr Dan spotted a bunch of egg capsules on the sandy shore. This quickly got the rest of us still on the reef awaiting extraction excited. These egg capsules revealed tiny tadpole-like embryos swimming actively in them.
There were 5 pods are actually made out of a type of glue casing made by the mother shark. The ends of each capsule were sealed by another type of glue. When it is time for the grown embryos to exit the capsule pods, the glue at the end of the pod would slowly 'unglue' itself releasing the pup.
The inside of the pods had a round object, which Dr Dan described as the yolk, and the tiny baby sharks seemed connected to it via an umbilical cord. The largest baby was about 3cm long and the smallest was less than 1 cm long.
shark egg capsule @ Cyrene 25Mar2011 from SgBeachBum on Vimeo.
Read more about the trip here :
http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2011/03/baby-sharks-at-cyrene.html
http://teamseagrass.blogspot.com/2011/03/cyrene-reef-25-mar-2011.html
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