The baby Zambezi Shark and the baby Sucker Fish: where’d they meet?
The baby Zambezi Shark and the baby Sucker Fish: where’d they meet?
If you watch the following video, shot late in the Umzimkulu Estuary gamefish season for 2023, you will notice something so cute. Aside from the cuddly little baby Zambezi Shark in the starring role, he has an accompaniment. The cutest little remora (sucker fish), that you ever did see, was clinging fast to his flustered host. Who was hooked right in the tail as he swam through and fell foul of the Happy Daze gamefish spread being happily trolled out the back.
We were lucky enough to be right there and then when it all happened. Which funnily enough, was half an hour after we had just pulled two absolute drunkards who had capsized from the same spot in the estuary. More about that coming soon…
Let’s check out a few things relating to this cool observation…
How old is that baby Zambezi Shark? a Zambezi Shark about 2.5m in length would also be about 6 years old. Which is when they reach sexual maturity and go out of the estuaries into the big ocean nightclub to find a mate. So at half that benchmark, the fish we see in the video – might be three years old.
What was he/she doing in the estuary? this compelling question can only be answered by deducing that baby Zambezi Sharks pop in and out of the estuaries until they reach a size that warrants moving out for good (sexual maturity). We have spotted many baby Zambezi Sharks in the Umzimkulu. One free jumper was a good 2m in length. He was crazy! Spooking everyone. At this stage of their lives, they have a very high concentration of testosterone in them. All kinds of antics arise from this restless state. Including the odd shark bite (these go unreported for the most part – especially up north where tourism is everything).
How old is that Remora? at nothing longer than 30cm, this guy was also very young. Nobody out there seems to have cared much for studying the weirdo remora family. There are a bunch of species – most of them freshwater?! Ours are called shark sucker fish or striped remora. They are pelagic and open-ocean spawners. Meaning that the larvae just drift along in the current, feeding on krill and things, until they are big enough to jump on the nearest shark. And feed off his/her scraps as they go along. I have caught a remora on a lure before so they evidently can also hunt on their own.
Where could they possibly have met? so they met randomly in the ocean nightclub. Just swam into each other. Hooked up and there we have it. This cannot have happened far from the Umzimkulu. Those baby Zambezi Sharks don’t travel too much. Even the adults don’t travel either. And they always return to the same estuary to breed. So the two of them were just in the right place at the right time. Just how Mother Nature intended it.
Are they gonna be mates for life? Well, if they could find each other after the little sucker fell off at one point in the release operation, they just might be. But if they don’t find each other in the gloom, all they have to do is head out into the current and find someone else to sucker up to!
In the meantime, hopefully there is a marine biologist out there who does something cool with his/her budget, and studies the remora clan a bit more.
We have the 2024 sardine run to look forward to. Browse the offerings in the menu above. And check out Umzimkulu Adrenalin for even more options. You can stay with us at the Umzimkulu Marina. We have sardines on one side of the sandspit, and estuary gamefish on the other.
