3rd Place Marine Life Behavior
Kat Zhou
“Rough Love“
Kat Zhou won a 10-day dive trip aboard the Mermaid I in Bali & Komodo
from Mermaid Liveaboards!
The Story:
The mating ritual of nurse sharks is quite violent! A male shark will grab onto the pectoral fin of a female and try to flip her over to her into a state of tonic immobility. Female nurse sharks end up with many scars from the mating process. Though the timing of the mating period for nurse sharks is difficult to predict, we found a few male nurse sharks chasing females around on the first afternoon that I was in Eleuthera. This was the only mating attempt I saw that ended successfully for the male, and we did not see any other mating attempts for the rest of the trip, so I was lucky to get this chance!
Location:
Eleuthera, Bahamas
Equipment Used:
- Camera: Nikon D850
- Housing: Nauticam Nikon D850 Housing
- Lens: Nikon 8-15mm Fisheye Lens with 1.4x Teleconverter
- Lights/Strobes: Inon Z330 Strobes
Camera Settings:
- Aperture: F11
- Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
- ISO: 400
