Aquarium Audio

Believe it or not, a shark’s mouth isn’t the only place it has teeth!

Nate Jaros received his Bachelors Degree in Biology and Environmental Science form Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. In 2002, Jaros began working as an aquarist at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, and found his specialty in the area of jelly culture. He accepted his position at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach in 2005. For over two years now he has successfully filled the Aquarium of the Pacific's exhibits with cultured jellies, and has sent many jellies to other aquariums.

Sharks are very successful and adaptive animals. They have been around for 400 million years. Learn more about their evolutionary history listening to the “Evolution of Sharks.”

Dr. William (Monty) Graham is a Senior Marine Scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab near Mobile, Alabama. He received his doctorate in Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1994. Dr. Graham has broad expertise in the field of Biological Oceanography and zooplankton ecology. His published works range from edited volumes of scientific papers to children's books on topics such as jellies behavior, feeding, and economic impacts of jelly blooms on fisheries. Most recently, his research has been on the role of climate in jellies-fish dynamics.

Eric Zahn, a local salt marsh ecologist and avid botanist, is a co-principal for ‘Tidal Influence' a company he founded to aid community groups and municipalities with their wetlands restoration efforts. Zahn is a lecturer in the Environmental Science and Policy Program at CSULB who has been one of the leaders focused on conserving coastal wetlands in Long Beach.

Dr. Barbara Taylor is a Supervisory Research Fish Biologist with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. She was the U.S. lead scientist on a tri-nation 2008 expedition designed to develop new acoustic monitoring methods and population estimates intended to assist Mexico in conservation efforts to save the vaquita. Taylor has been researching marine mammals for over 30 years.

Since 1998 Jeffrey Gallant and Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark, Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG) shark researchers, have pursued a mythical creature-the Greenland shark. These researchers use a multimedia presentation to tell the story of how two diving scientists searched for and ultimately found a population of Greenland sharks. Dr. Chris Harvey-Clark is the director of Geerg‘s Pacific region and director of the animal care center at the University of British Columbia.

James B. Wood, PhD is the Aquarium of the Pacific’s director of education. He has published numerous peer-reviewed and popular papers on cephalopod behavior, life history, physiology, and husbandry. Dr.Woods is webmaster of The Cephalopod Page, one of the longest running biological web sites and is a founding executive member and board member for MarineBio.org. He has worked with the Census of Marine Life since 1998 and co-developed one of their pilot species databases–CephBase.

Top predatory sharks play a crucial role in the oceans ecosystems. Their predatory behaviors on sick, injured, and lesser predatory animals keep ocean food webs thriving. When you remove top predatory animals, the results can be devastating.

Dr. Alex Hearn studied Oceanography and Marine Biology at Southampton University in the UK, and did his PhD at Heriot Watt University in the Orkney Islands. In 2002, he moved to the Galapagos Islands and worked as coordinator of fisheries research at the Charles Darwin Foundation. Hearn developed the Galapagos Shark Research and Conservation Program in 2006. He is currently working as a postdoctoral scholar at the Biotelemetry Laboratory of UC Davis.

Dr. Jeffrey Graham is a research physiologist and senior lecturer at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. His research has expanded from studies on the physiological and biological perspectives of sharks to include shark ecology and habitat research. In 2006, the Southern California Bight Elasmobranch Consortium was created and headquartered in his laboratory. Dr. Graham holds a PhD from the University of California San Diego, Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

Dr. Gregor Cailliet received a doctorate in Biological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1972. That same year, he became a faculty member at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and has been there ever since. Dr. Cailliet presently serves as the Program Director of the Pacific Shark Research Center. He has served as an advisor to 100 masters students in the field of marine fish ecology and has also been very active in central California reserves or sanctuaries.

Besides hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, and feeling the world around them, sharks are adapted with a sixth sense that allows them to use electroreceptors called Ampullae de Lorenzini. Learn more about this rare ability that aids sharks in the skilled predation of their prey.

Chris Lowe has been studying sharks for over 20 years and currently runs the Shark Lab at CSULB where he was recently awarded Professor of the Year. Dr. Lowe’s research interests include the physiological and behavioral ecology of elasmobranchs and other gamefishes, as well as the role of marine refuges in fisheries conservation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in marine biology at Barrington College. He went on to get his masters in biology at CSULB. And he holds a PhD in zoology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The very body part that makes sharks so intimidating is also what makes sharks so fascinating: teeth! From sharks that filter their food instead of biting to sharks that have jaws much like a nutcracker, you can learn a tremendous amount about a shark just by looking at its teeth.