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A new study published in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology showed that even sharks have different personality traits.
Researchers from the University of Exeter and Marine Biological Association of the UK found out that there are sharks with strong social connections while others prefer solitude.
According to them, this could determine their interaction with their other group mates in the vast seas.
For this study, the researchers recorded the social interactions of juvenile groups of small spotted catsharks that were held in captivity in three different kinds of habitats.
David Jacoby, one of the researchers, said that they found out that even though there are changes in the shark's group size, they still remain well-connected with each other.
The social hierarchy of these sharks was passed on through generation after generations in different habitats, he added.
Jacoby added that these results came from the social preferences that reflect their strategies for survival.
He explained sharks that prefer to be well-connected to other sharks tend to have conspicuous groups.
However, less sociable ones tend to have camouflaging ability, such as having the ability to match ones color with their surroundings, which is an ingenious survival strategy.
Darren Croft, another researcher involved in the study, said that sharks have different behaviors that are consistent among other sharks.
This confirms that even sharks have different personalities, he added.
Croft explained that different anti-predator strategies were evolved because small juvenile fish is an easy prey for larger fish.
Despite this, more research is still needed to find out the influence of predators on the personality traits in shark, he concluded.
