First ever recording of leopard sharks mating in the wild reveals ‘threesome’
Endangered leopard sharks have been observed mating in the wild for the first time, with scientists witnessing a “threesome” involving two males and a female.
The encounter was filmed by Hugo Lassauce, a marine biologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and documented in a research paper published in the Journal of Ethology on Thursday.
Lassauce told CNN that mating events are rare to witness in any shark species, and researchers have only previously seen courtship interactions, where a male chases after a female, but not the act itself.
During a dive on July 12, 2024, Lassauce said, he “came across these two males grabbing the female’s pectoral fins with their mouth.” According to the paper, the three sharks, all of which were around 2.3 meters (7.6 feet) in length, were spotted on the seafloor.
Both of the males held onto the female, who would occasionally struggle to free herself, for more than an hour.
One of the males then mated with the female for 63 seconds, before the second male did the same, lasting 47 seconds.
After copulating, the two males lay immobile on the seafloor as the female swam away.
Lassauce explained that the males are simply exhausted by the process. “Holding a female while she is trying to free herself all the time, and mating with her while swimming is just taking all of the male’s energy,” he said. After copulating, “the male is just out of it,” Lassauce added, needing to lie on the seafloor “for a couple of minutes to regain its energy.”
The observation is part of a wider study on the reproductive behavior and spatial ecology of leopard sharks, he said, and will inform ongoing conservation efforts targeting the species.
