A diver has successfully released a baby shark, called Toothless, into the wild after finding its egg casing washed up on Brighton Beach.
After discovering the shark egg on the shore after a storm, Gio Prince decided to give the baby a second chance at life by raising the embryo in an aquarium tank.
A couple of years ago, Gio did the same thing with a shark called Lenny that he raised in a “very DIY” hatchery. "This year we have a proper aquarium set up for any shark, ray or cuttlefish eggs that get washed up on the beach,” he says.
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Prince has spent five months watching Toothless develop until it finally hatched into a little small spotted catshark (Scyliorhinus canicular) pup.
When Toothless first hatched in the aquarium, Prince says he “spent hours just watching this baby shark resting at the bottom of the tank and even saw them yawn a few times, which was really cute.”
After a couple of days in the tank, Prince and colleagues released Toothless back into the wild. “This is our newborn catshark Toothless swimming out in the wild for the first time ever,” says Prince on Instagram.
“We released the pup on an incoming tide on a chalk reef that will provide plenty of hiding spots from predators as well as many prey items.”
Good luck in the wide world, Toothless!
Image and video credit: Gio Prince. www.instagram.com/giosdiving | Brighton Watersports
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