You're looking directly into the Hunters on the Reef exhibit at the Waikiki Aquarium in Hawaii. This picture was taken about a minute before you came to this page. Hit "Refresh Image" to see an updated picture.
The camera doesn't cover all of the tank, so you may not see the sharks every time. If you see a clock on a black screen, it's night in Hawaii.
The tank is filled with predators from the tropical Pacific. Four blacktip reef sharks and one zebra shark share the tank with jacks, groupers, snappers, emperors, and a rare pelagic stingray. You can distinguish the four blacktip sharks by the black tips on their fins. The zebra shark stands out with its brown spotted body. (Spots? On a "zeba"?!) It's a 40,000 gallon tank and all the sharks are more than 4 feet long.
We know you're wondering, because we did, too: Why don't the sharks eat the fish? According to the aquarium education staff, when sharks live in a balanced community, they are fairly picky diners, not the eating machines we think of. The staff keeps the sharks well fed and healthy and has provided them with the right size and number of tank mates.
Look for feeding times on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Shark Fact: All sharks sleep (and they spend a lot of time resting). Some species can rest on the bottom for long periods of time and pump water over their gills by using pump-like things called spiracles.
