Sharks attack humans, not all the time, but it happens. It’s just that the rare times it happens it’s because of a mistake. The shark mistakes us for a baby seal.
The real reason sharks attack humans
Let’s start with a fact, shark attacks on humans are not as common as they would have us believe. These animals do not spend their lives desperately looking for human flesh, in fact, we are not even among their favorite flavors. However, sometimes attacks do happen, but it seems that there is a rather interesting and even funny explanation — so to speak — related to why this happens. It seems that sharks mistake us for seals.
The study that reveals everything: for sharks we are seals
As Focus reports, it’s called mistaken identity theory and it seems that sharks, when they attack humans, do so because they confuse our silhouette with that of a seal. The specimens that most often fall into this error are the tiger shark, the white shark and the leuca shark.
Thanks to a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, conducted by a team from Macquarie University in Sydney, we now know almost with certainty that sharks attack us by mistake because our shape, seen from below when we swim, resembles that of their favorite prey.
How was this conculsion arrived at?
The research started by analyzing images of a human being while swimming, with and without a surfboard, then comparing it to images of a seal or sea lion in motion.
Subjecting then to a simulation that reproduces the view of sharks that, you know, are colorblind and do not have a high visual capacity especially when young, it is clearly understood why shark attacks on humans occur: from the point of view of the animal, our silhouette is in every way equal to a baby seal or sea lion.