On 2/4/24, I drove 12 hours from Gainesville, FL, to Newport, KY, for the purpose of collecting flash frozen blood samples from the pyjama shark, Poroderma africanum, housed at the Newport Aquarium. I brought 24 2ml cryovials to collect triplicate samples from each of the aquarium’s 8 individuals, as well as our lab’s liquid nitrogen tank, which would be able to keep the samples below -80°C for up to two weeks. The Newport Aquarium was the closest aquarium in the US which housed P. africanum, and I was in contact with head veterinarian Hali Jungers and animal care specialist Jolene Hanna in order to take samples during the animals’ annual veterinary exam. I would be taking flash frozen blood samples with the intention of constructing a high-quality reference genome for the species.
On 2/5/24, I met Hali in person, and she gave me a tour around the aquarium both of the public exhibits as well as veterinary clinic and staff restricted areas. Here I was acquainted with the aquarium’s pyjama sharks at the Shark Central touch tank, an enclosure they shared with California horn sharks, a Japanese bullhead shark, and a guitarfish. All species were separated by sex, and the aquarium housed 4 male and 4 female pyjama sharks. According to aquarium records, 3 of the pyjama sharks were originally procured from South Africa’s Two Oceans Aquarium, and are presumably of wild origin. 3 of the individuals are descendants of the original 3 sharks brought to the aquarium and were born in captivity, and the remaining 2 were procured as pups from an aquarium in New England.
While at the aquarium, I had the privilege of witnessing aquarium veterinary activities firsthand. An axolotl had unfortunately required an arm amputation due to an injury, and I watched it receive an x-ray as a part of its check-up. A cobra had also unfortunately passed away the day prior due to cancer, and I was able watch the veterinary and animal care staff perform an autopsy. I met and spoke to several vets and animal care specialists and learned of their backgrounds and career, education, and research experiences. Jolene Hanna, the aquarium’s head biologist, has been involved in a captive breeding program for the critically endangered sharkray, of which the Newport Aquarium currently houses two.
On the morning of 2/6/24, an hour or so before the aquarium opened to the public, the vet and animal care staff performed blood draws and took weight and length measurements of all of the specimens in the Shark Central exhibit. This involved retrieving each individual in a large net, confirming the individual’s tracks ID number with a microchip scanner, and placing them ventral side up on the side of the tank on a wet towel. Hali drew 20 cc/ml of blood from a vein in front of the anal fin of each specimen, and I collected roughly 200 μL of this in triplicate in 95% ethanol. Within half a minute of the initial collection, I flash froze and stored the cryovial in the liquid nitrogen tank. This was repeated for all 8 P. africanum individuals. The remaining blood collected by the veterinary staff was smeared on slides for later examination of the animals’ health.
I departed from Newport the morning of 2/8/24. Funds from my travel award were used for hotel lodging and meals during my stay. While I had initially planned on renting a vehicle for the trip, there seemed to be some miscommunication between UF and Avis/Budget about their rental policies and discounts, and I consequently used my personal vehicle. I did not claim the use of my personal vehicle in the travel expense report. My collaborators and I are currently in contact with technicians at ICBR and Oxford Nanopore in order to extract ultra high molecular weight DNA from the samples I collected and to ultimately sequence the genome using Nanopore’s telomere to telomere pipeline. Below are photographs I took during the blood collection process.
Emmaline Sheahan is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. through the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology. Sheahan is advised by Dr. Rob Guralnick, Curator of Biodiversity Informatics, and Dr. Gavin Naylor, Curator of the Florida Program for Shark Research, here at the Florida Museum.
The 2024 Spring Student Travel Awards are supported by the FLMNH Department of Natural History, including funds from the Louis C. and Jane Gapenski Endowed Fellowship and the B.J. and Eve Wilder Endowment. If you would like to help support this fund for future student awards, please go to:
Louis C. and Jane Gapenski Endowed Fellowship
B.J. and Eve Wilder Endowment