310 Shark and Company 



At least two species of the Big-Eyed Threshers inhabit deep water, 

 Alopias superciliosus Lowe, 1840, in the tropical and sub-tropical At- 

 lantic, and Alopias profundus Nakamura, 1935, in the Pacific. The huge 

 eye of these species, one fifth the size of the head, is typical of the sort 

 many deep-sea fishes develop. 



Family Orectolobidae—NvRSE and Carpet Sharks 



Side bv side, forming a colorful, gently rippling carpet on the sea 

 bottom, lies a school of unusually beautiful sharks, so lethargic that even 

 an approaching bather will usually not bother them. These are the 

 Nurse sharks {G'mglymostonm cirratum Bonnaterre, 1788) of the At- 



\ I il 





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Atlantic Nurse shark (Gynglymostoma cirratum). 



Courtesy, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 



lantic— the only species of the vast Orectolobidae family that is found 

 in the Atlantic. 



The edge of the sea is the little world of the Nurse shark. It is be- 

 gotten there in the shallows, often in the sight of man. It is born there, 

 one or as many as 26 pups emerging into the sun-warmed tepid waters. 

 It lives there, close-packed in schools of a couple of dozen. It feeds 

 quietly there, lazily ddvouring the squids, shrimps, crabs, spiny lobsters, 

 sea urchins, and small fishes that wander by. 



Nurse sharks are no kin to the dread Gray Nurse (Carcharias arena- 

 rius) of Australia. They are sluggish, bottom-dwelling sharks— most of 

 them small. 



Even the humble Nurse shark, however, can be dangerous. At Rock 

 Harbor in the Florida Keys in July of 1950, Warren Rathjen, a student 

 at the Marine Laboratory of the University of Miami, was looking for 

 seaweed specimens in muddy water 3 feet deep, about 50 feet from 

 shore. As he bent over, something grabbed the back of his right thigh. 

 Rathjen whirled around and seized the creature that was tenaciously 

 biting him. He ripped from his thigh a 2i/4-foot shark which slithered out 

 of his grasp. Because of Rathjen's knowledge of sharks, there is little 

 doubt that he was attacked by a Nurse shark. But the doubt did linger. 



