tonic immobility of the shark!

Tiger shark

Mike was really awesome!! He communicated with sharks by stroking their snouts. The idea was to test the tonic immobility on sharks. I remembered when I stroke my cat's head she would keep still and asked for more. That's what he did to the lemon, reef, tiger and great white sharks. It's incredible the way those sharks would go limp and relax while he patted them.

Reef shark

He would stroke a reef shark and it suddenly went quiet. When he released his hand it quickly moved away from him. The interesting part was that it wanted his touch again. He patted the shark one more time until he could positioned the sharks vertically and it was very still until he let go of the shark.

Click here to see the video.

Great white shark

Obviously, not all sharks would go in a trance state like that. The female is more responsive than the male. The lemon and reef shark are easier to response than the tiger and great white shark. The great white sharks are more in control than the others since it allowed Mike to swim with it.

lemon shark

Overall, tonic immobility is also another way to understand the shark behavior. It proves that sharks weren’t as vicious as we thought they usually are but there’s a docile side of them too. Hopefully, I could get close to them as well. I can't help it, they're such a fascinating creature!!