"Dr Lassauce, a marine biologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, was snorkelling nine miles (15km) off the coast of New Caledonia when he spotted something unusual. 'I'd seen males swimming fast after females before and I'd arrived "on the scene" just after a male and female separated, but I'd never seen the whole sequence,' he explained. 'Then while I was surveying this particular aggregation of leopard sharks, I spotted a female with two males grasping her pectoral fins on the sand below me."
"During the unusual encounter, two male leopard sharks mated with a female in quick succession - with the entire tryst lasting just 110 seconds. 'It was over quickly for both males, one after the other. The first took 63 seconds, the other 47,' explained Dr Hugo Lassauce, who filmed the encounter. Afterwards, the males 'lost all their energy', and lay immobile on the bottom of the seafloor. In contrast, the female shark 'swam away actively'."
Two male leopard sharks engaged in sequential copulation with a single female nine miles off New Caledonia. The entire encounter lasted 110 seconds, with the first male mating for 63 seconds and the second male for 47 seconds. After mating, both males lay immobile on the seafloor, appearing depleted of energy, while the female swam away actively. The observed mating behavior followed a structured sequence that included prolonged pre-copulation positioning. Similar mating trios have been observed in other species such as bonobos, bottlenose dolphins, grey whales, spotted hyenas, and lemurs.
Read at Mail Online
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