Sharkies

I didn't just spend my time away in Sri Lanka however. On the way I stopped off in the Maldivian island of Biyardhoo. What did I do there? The same thing I do everytime I find myself on a small tropical island: dive!



I've missed these guys! The cool thing about the Indo-pacific region is that you are more likely to see a range of sharks on any given dive than you are in the Caribbean (generally). In the foreground is a grey reef shark (which it should be noted is different to the Caribbean reef sharks of many posts). In the background is a whitetip reefshark. This shot (though technically appalling) gives a good opportunity to compare the two. Notice the bigger, stiffer looking fins on the grey reef as opposed to the small fins on the whitetip and how the grey reef's are position further up the body. The grey reef shark is a requiem shark that needs to keep swimming whereas whitetips are more sedentary with the need for the odd burst of high speed. Another difference is scale - this is about as big as a whitetip gets and you can see its small fry compared to the grey reef.