Sharks eat more grass than meat makes the science world confused

Seagrass behavior of some sharks sharks surprised the researchers because this species has a tradition of carnivorous eating.

Samantha Leigh, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, USA discovered large amounts of seagrass in the stomach of a number of sharks , according to National Geographic.

Experimental detection of seagrass behavior of shovel head sharks.(Video: National Geographic).

The video posted on July 3 on Youtube shows shovel-headed sharks in the experiment rushing to eat seagrass brought into the water. Analyzing the nutritional composition of the shovel shark's stomach, Leigh discovered 56% of organic matter in seagrass, similar to that of young sea turtles, although their traditional menu is meat.

Dana Bethea, an ecologist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Florida, said in 2007 that sharks fed seaweed were passive through other prey."We don't think they're swimming out there and eating salad," Bethea said.

According to her, the fact that young individuals eat more seagrass than adults in this species are likely to reflect the process of accumulating predatory experience."Learning how to hunt takes place in the early stages until they get bigger and really understand their taste, " Bethea said.

Shovel head sharks passive seaweed through other prey.

Leigh did not rule out the possibility of passive herbivores , but hypothesized that shovel sharks had a way of digesting plants by the large amount of seagrass found in the stomach. "The high ability is that some forms of gut microbes in their gut can produce enzymes that digest seagrass, a characteristic commonly found in omnivores and especially herbivores , " Leigh said.

However, a species to be considered omnivorous must absorb the nutritional value or energy from the plant they eat. Leigh said that because he did not know the reason for shovel shark eating sea grass, scientists would hardly conclude that their behavior was intentional.