A drone finds a shark nursery "rare" at 2,500 feet below the surface

Images of drones from a rare shark nursery, found 200 miles west of Ireland, were revealed. This is what is called a discovery "on a scale never recorded in Irish waters".

The film shows a high concentration of unclosed shark eggs, alongside swarms of black-capped cats, suggesting that they were themselves of the same species. 19659006] The discovery was made during the last investigation of the Holland 1 remote control vehicle of the Institute Navy as part of the INFOMAR program, a joint venture of the Marine Institute (MI) and Geological Survey of Ireland, funded by the Irish Government and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund of the EU. INFOMAR aims to create "integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological characteristics of the seabed near the coast".

This shark nursery was discovered in a "Searover" (Sensitive Ecosystems Analysis and ROV Exploration of Reef Habitat) survey conducted during three weeks in July.

"This discovery shows the importance of documentation of sensitive marine habitats, will give us a better understanding of the biology of these beautiful animals and the function of their ecosystem in the biologically sensitive area of ​​Ireland", explained David O. Sullivan, scientific leader of the Searover investigation. For The Guardian, "David Attenborough's true." It's a major biological discovery and a story of this magnitude would have been on Blue Planet had they known it, "he said. "We know very little about deepwater shark nurseries on a global scale."

Eggs were laid on dead coral skeletons. According to the video above, coral reefs can be a refuge for newly born sharks.

In addition to the large number of black-mouthed cats, the drone also managed to capture images of the rare sarcophagus Sailfin, a species that could potentially be present to search for crates of eggs.

The Searover investigation was the second of three planned investigations. The team hopes to be able to come back next year hoping to film the hatching eggs.

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