5 Interesting Facts About Lemon Sharks

Here is a lemon shark with some remoras hanging off for a ride

I really like sharks, so today I want to write about a cool species called the lemon shark.

Here are five interesting facts about them:

1. These powerful sharks grow over 3 metres long.
2. They get their name from their yellow colouring which helps them to stay camouflaged on sandy seafloors.
3. Lemon sharks hunt early in the morning and late in the evening.  They mainly eat medium-sized fish and rays, but will also eat crustaceans and molluscs.  Like other sharks, if they smell blood in the water, they will gather in large numbers for a feeding frenzy.
4. They give birth to 4-18 live young, in special nursery areas where the pups grow up for the first few years of their lives.
5. Lemon sharks are found in the western Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to Brazil, off the coast of west Africa and in the eastern Pacific Ocean from California to Ecuador.  Their numbers are dropping due to excessive hunting and habitat loss in the coastal mangrove areas where the young sharks grow up.

I hope that you found these facts interesting and learned something new.

Are there any other interesting facts that you would like to share about lemon sharks?