Aquarium hijinks provide strongest evidence yet that sharks love to play

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​ In a Southern California aquarium, a young leopard shark rushes headfirst toward a plastic squid toy and then—as if in a game of chicken—makes a last-minute dash to the left, barely clearing the dangling rubber tentacles. Meanwhile, his tankmate, a California skate, grabs an orange ring with her mouth, rolling the textured plastic around with her tongue. And over at the tank’s sandy bottom, a hovering horn shark glides over to a bright yellow hoop and squeezes himself—along with all his jutting fins—right through it.

These cartilaginous fish aren’t putting on a show. It seems they’re playing—just for the fun of it, according to the team behind the new study, published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science. The findings, the researchers say, offer the strongest evidence yet that sharks engage in play behavior.

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CREDITS: (FOOTAGE) AUTUMN SMITH; (MUSIC) CHRIS BURNS; (VIDEO PRODUCTION) K. MCLEAN/SCIENCE

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