Sharks
Pelagic Thresher Shark
Alopias pelagicus · Cartilaginous fish, family Alopiidae
The pelagic thresher looks like a shark designed by a calligrapher: huge liquid eyes, a small mouth, metallic lavender-gray flanks, and a tail that streams behind it in an impossible ribbon. At dawn over Monad Shoal, divers kneel behind rope lines in blue half-light until one rises from the deep and begins its slow carousel around a cleaning station, tail arcing with every turn. It is among diving's most graceful sights and one of its best-managed: local rules on distance and lights have kept the sharks coming for two decades. Elsewhere the species exists mostly as bycatch statistics, which the Endangered listing reflects.
Dove e quando avvistarne uno
"Residente" significa che la maggior parte delle immersioni in quella destinazione li incontra; "stagionale" significa che sono presenti in modo affidabile nei mesi indicati; qualsiasi altra cosa è un bonus, non un piano.
| Destinazione | Affidabilità | Mesi | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| MalapascuaPhilippines | Resident: seen on most dives | Tutto l'anno | |
| Brothers, Daedalus & St John'sEgypt | Occasional | Tutto l'anno | |
| Marsa Alam & the Deep SouthEgypt | Occasional | Tutto l'anno |
Il mese migliore, a colpo d'occhio
Capirle
Habitat: Open ocean and deep seamount flanks; rises to shallow cleaning stations at dawn, one of the few predictable windows into its world
Distribuzione: Indo-Pacific pelagic waters from the Red Sea and East Africa to Mexico; the reliable diver encounters are at Philippine seamounts
Comportamento: A shy, wide-eyed deep-water hunter that visits cleaning stations in the dim early morning, circling patiently while cleaner wrasses work its skin and gills. The tail-slap hunting technique, confirmed on video off Cebu, is unique theater: the shark lunges, brakes, and snaps its caudal fin overhead like a whip.
Dieta: Small schooling fish and squid, stunned with whip-cracks of the enormous tail before being picked off
Dimensioni: tipicamente intorno a 3.0 m; documentato fino a 3.8 m (total length; the scythe-shaped upper tail lobe accounts for roughly half of it).
Come comportarsi in sua presenza
Follow the Malapascua protocol that made these dives sustainable: stay behind the viewing lines, no flash where prohibited, minimal movement and noise, and let the shark control its circuit of the cleaning station.
Conservazione
Endangered: slow reproduction (usually two pups) collides with heavy longline and gillnet mortality across the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines' protection of its cleaning stations is a working model of encounter-based conservation.
Siti mappati noti per avvistamenti
I siti evidenziati sono stati schedati per questa specie dai nostri redattori; i numeri sono record di occorrenza GBIF registrati entro circa 5 km dal sito a partire dal 1990.
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