A Spotted Gully Shark off Simon's Town

I was diving off Simon's Town, South Africa, when a spotted gully shark showed up. I had not booked the dive for that. I spent the rest of the trip thinking about how little I knew about them.

The sighting

Spotted gully sharks (Triakis megalopterus) live along this coast. They like kelp forest and rocky bottom, which is exactly the kind of water around Simon's Town. Seeing one still felt like luck. They are not the animal people fly here to photograph.

What they look like

A slender shark, grey-brown, with spots and stripes that are stronger on the young ones and fade with age. They grow to about 1.7 metres. Broad, rounded snout, large eyes. Smaller than the sharks this coastline is famous for, and easy to miss if you are looking past them.

How they live

They are shy. Divers are not in much danger from them. They use shallow water down to around 100 metres: sand, rocky reef, kelp. That is also where they hunt. Small fish, crustaceans, cephalopods. They move through the kelp and rock and push prey out of hiding.

Conservation

The IUCN lists them as Near Threatened. Habitat loss, pollution, and bycatch are the usual reasons. They are not a poster shark, which is probably part of the problem.

I went in looking at kelp and came out with a species I had to look up.