Lemons, but no bananas.

Everybody has their own crazy superstition whether it is knocking on wood or throwing spilled salt over their shoulder, but the teaching assistant for our trip takes the cake when it comes to strange preventative beliefs.  T.A Stephan made it clear that no bananas were permitted on the boat when we were to embark on our shark tagging trip hosted by Nova Southeastern University at the Guy Harvey Research Institution.  Bananas?  Did this generate from Banana Boat?  Many questions are to be asked about this superstition, but I complied and stowed away an orange from continental breakfast in my backpack.   Apparently, the superstition is widely debated, but the most common explanations of the prohibition of bananas on water craft is due to bananas containing diseases, spiders, or other nasty stuff. They also posed as a safety hazard to the sailors from the cartoonish danger of slipping on a banana peel.

Who cares about banana when I mentioned “Shark Tagging” though?  That topic doesn’t come up in everyday conversation at dinner or pillow talk, yet we had the opportunity to take a boat off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood, catch sharks (as humanely as possible), tag, take samples, and appreciate sharks.  Our group managed to pull in five sharks including three Nurse Sharks, a Sandbar Shark, and my favorite, a Lemon shark

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The lemon shark is a species found in subtropical and tropical waters on both coasts of the Atlantic as well as the Eastern Pacific ocean.  It is a stocky shark, with a yellowish/ olive brown color and they can grow up to 10 ft. long as well. Usually, these guys feed at night, so it was surprising to see one of these babies pulled up to the boat.  The one we caught was a male who measured in at 250 cm (about 8.2 ft.) Like many other fish, they use a system of electromagnetic sensory organs known as the Ampullae of Lorenzini which help them use the electric field of their prey in order to hunt. Creepy stuff. 

Fruit was a reoccurring theme of this tropical trip and don’t worry, neither bananas nor lemon sharks are endangered, I just thought they were two cool topics.  If you want more information regarding the superstition, check out this weird article on snopes. If you wanna learn more about the lemon shark, just go to wikipedia, you lazy freak.