why-animals-do-the-thing:

anentireuncookedmeatloaf:

cactusrabbit:

bunjywunjy:

seatrench:

Curious Blue Shark

(source)

this shark is the most earnest creature on the entire planet

WHAT THIS

WHAT IT DO

BOOP

@why-animals-do-the-thing ???

This is probably investigatory behavior! As we talked about a couple years ago on the blog, sharks have lots of little sensory organs around their nose and mouth called Ampullae of Lorenzini. 

(Photo Credit: Chris Huh)

They’re basically little gel-filled pores that sense electric current, and they’re why sharks investigate everything with their faces. Sharks bump things with their nose to put their ampullae near them in an attempt to learn about them - like finding out if you’re animal, vegetable or mineral, and if you could potentially be edible. 

From the video linked, we can see the shark is swimming around checking out the divers (who appear to be hanging out at a decompression stop), before coming over closer to the guy who is filming. This isn’t aggressive behavior - it looks like simply curiosity. It’s not a shark kiss, it’s a shark question: what are you?