Are sharks really afraid of dolphins?

Talk about it here!

MythMod

How dose the shark know what a dolphin is
And if it dose know what a dolphin is dose it know the difference between a dolphin and a large block of foam

Dang, they haven even finished the airing the show yet.

your point its just fun to talk about mythbusters

If you really want to get specific with the dolphin and the shark myth, you need to come up with some idea to put the speakers inside the dolphin and then blast dolphin noises. If no sharks come for 20 minutes then you must know that sharks are afraid of dolphins. The part of Africa you are in, are you sure that sharks have seen dolphins?

you make a very good point

I grew up in the Caribbean and we have a human friendly dolphin named Jojo that roams the waters and he killed a shark for my mum just to show off. She was snorkeling and a five foot reef shark was minding his own business when Jojo came and rammed his snout into the shark's gills. He also killed a Tiger shark that got too close to a group of swimmers.

So if sharks aren't afraid of dolphins...they should be.

you make a good point too

There is a severed foot on the show! Its in the corner of the boat!

uh oh

sharks are highly tuned in to electrical impulses. couldn't using an animatronic dolphin have put a signal out that the shark didn't like?

Hm... I have a bit of a problem with how they tested this one... Sharks have an amazing sense of smell. They can detect a drop of blood is something like thousands of gallons. And they painted the dolphin that they used. So, was the shark put off by the dolphin shape, movement, or just the foreign smell of the paint?

Thanks, anyone who thinks that humans are the only animals with a sense of humour...haven't spent any time with a dolphin.

When he was younger he liked to trip water skiers and then he'd circle them while on his side (so that his tail moved like a shark's, back and forth rather than up and down).

He also scared me right out of my skin one day when I was just relaxing in neck deep water and he came up behind and bumped me in the back. I honestly thought a bull shark had come up because they sometimes bump their prey before a bite.

Jojo also is expert at pulling up boat anchors, stealing swim trunks, and if you laid on your back floating in the water he'd push you towards shore.

Jojo really is an amazing 'air fish'. To learn more about him and his fav human Dean please visit http://www.marinewildlife.org/jojoProject.php
and
http://www.crystalbay.net/zines/march.html

thats what i thought a first but when they put the stuff whatever they put around it

Huh? What stuff around it are you talking about?

They should have also made a replica of another marine mammal to see if it made a difference. Was it that the sharks were scared off by the dolphin or just curious? If they had made a replica of another shark would the end result still be the same? P.S. My boyfriend is an engineer for toyota and is thrilled there was a new tundra on the show today!!

Great Whites are naturally wary of things they aren't famillar with. If they have put any large moving object near that fake seal the sharks would be shy. I saw a different programe where they had a mechanical diver moving his legs and it make the Greats nervous for about an hour and then they continued to feed on the bait.


PS- That ee-ee-ee-ee noise that everyone associates with dolphins is the sound effect from 'Flipper' which is a high speed call of a Woodchuck. Giggle.

Yea. I think any large predator would be wary of new things. After all, injury to a predator essentially equals starvation. I don't think they did quite enough testing to really call that one plausable.

Dolphins and sharks have been living together in the same environment for thousands if not millions of years, they surly know full well of each others strengths and weaknesses are. Also my brother is a marine biologist in Australia and he has told me stories about dolphin mobs killing bull sharks for s**t’s and kicks, I guess the dolphins ram the gills of the sharks.

p.s. dose anyone remember that game called Echo? I think it was for Playstation 1

Now that they finished the segment and you've seen them call it plausible, you can start guessing. From the data they showed 'it might be something as simple visual recognition of the dophin as a threat. Maybe something more complicated or less obvious.