A new study found that sharks have the capability to determine human orientation including field of vision. This sheds light to their usual offensive technique of coming from the blind side.
According to researchers Erich Ritter of the Shark Research Institute and Raid Amin of the University of West Florida, a predator needs to be very observant of their prey's body structure, size and motion in order to have successful forage. In the case of sharks, they normally attack the prey's "blind side" or which is not within its field of vision.
They experimented on Caribbean reef sharks and scuba divers to prove their hypothesis.
The Carribean reef sharks are the most common reef sharks found in the Carribean Sea. Normally they grow up to 10 feet long and normally feed on various types of fish and molluscs.
The researchers discovered soon after that majority of sharks has the tendency to avoid swimming and attacking within the field of vision of its prey, in this case of humans.
Their findings also offer some valuable insight into the sharks' ability to recognize and understand the human body orientation including determining the "blind side."
However, they admit that there are still limitations on their study. They are still uncertain of the aspects of how the sharks can perceive thus the dynamics that may influence the distance of their attacks.
Both of them however are very optimistic of advanced research on this area of study. Ritter told UPI.com, "Our discovery that a shark can differentiate between the field of vision and non-field of vision of a human being, or comprehend human body orientation, raises intriguing questions not only about shark behavior, but also about the mental capacity of sharks."
Amin also thinks that further research could give us better insight on dealing with sharks. He said: "The more research is conducted on how sharks sense and interpret humans, the better we will understand how to cope with them in their habitat."
This study was published in the Dec. 5 issue of the online journal Animal Cognition.