page_title: Lemon shark
section_title: Social behavior
hierarchical_section_title: Lemon shark / Social behavior
caption_attribution_description: English: Lemonshark (Negaprion brevirostris) Italiano: Squalo limone (Negaprion brevirostris)
context_page_description: The lemon shark is a species of shark from the family Carcharhinidae. Lemon sharks can grow to 3.4 metres in length. They are often found in shallow subtropical waters and are known to inhabit and return to specific nursery sites for breeding. Often feeding at night, these sharks use electroreceptors to find their main source of prey: fish. Lemon sharks enjoy the many benefits of group living such as enhanced communication, courtship, predatory behavior, and protection. This species of shark gives birth to live young, and the females are polyandrous and have a biennial reproductive cycle. Lemon sharks are not thought to be a large threat to humans. The lemon shark's life span is unknown, but the average shark is 25 to 30 years old.
context_section_description: Many species of sharks, including the lemon shark, are known to actively prefer to be social and live in groups or loose aggregations. A few benefits of group living are enhanced communication, courtship, predatory behavior, and protection. Group living and a preference for social interaction is thought to be important for the survival and success of juvenile lemon sharks. Group living, though, comes with its costs. A few include increased risk of disease, ease of parasite transmission, and competition for resources.
  Lemon sharks are found in groups based on similar size. Passive sorting mechanisms such as its ontogenetic habitat shift have been postulated to contribute to the formation of groups organized based on size or sex. One exception to this behavior is that sharks up to 1 year old show no preference for groups of matched or unmatched size. One hypothesis for this finding is that it is beneficial for the small young lemon sharks to associate with the larger individuals because they have an easier time gathering information about the habitat regarding elements such as predators and local prey. Lemon shark groups form due to an active desire to be social rather than a simple attraction to the same limited resources such as the mangrove habitat and prey associated with such a habitat.
  Many studies have related brain size with complex social behaviors in mammals and birds. The brain of a lemon shark, being comparable in relative mass to that of a mammal or bird, suggests they have the ability to learn from social interactions, cooperate with other individuals, and have the potential to establish dominance hierarchies and stable social bonds.
caption: A lemon shark with many remoras clinging to its body.
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