Welcome back to the Fish Pageant for a thrilling season 2. This season we are taking our pageant from the tropical reefs to some darker and toothier waters. This will be a sharktastic season that may just put Shark Week to shame.
Our first contestant isn't a sour as she seems and is considered a more docile breed. Please welcome to center stage the big, the yellow, the beautiful…..Lemon Shark.
Starting in classic pageant style we will begin with the category of Appearance. Lemon Shark has a gorgeous yellow and olive color that helps her to better camouflage to the sand bottoms she patrols. One of her most recognizable fashion choices is that she has two dorsal fins that are the same size; a bold move but it is one serves her smashingly. She is on the large size of our contestants with her biggest size reaching nearly 10 feet. Her teeth are very narrow and have smooth edges with finely serrated bases while her nose is blunt and appears shorter than the width of their mouth. Lemon shark has a strong and stocky build weighing in at an average of 551 pounds. which she flaunts with pride. Her incredible physic earns her a 7.8/10 in Appearance.
The next category to judge our fabulous contestant on is Social Skills. A common misconception of sharks is that they are loners, Lemon shark works daily to prove this stereotype wrong. Lemon Shark loves to be social and most enjoy living in groups scientifically known as aggregations. These cliques have a social hierarchy based on sex and size, these rankings decide who eats first and how much. These small social groups also work together to make coordinated attacks on large schools of fish; they will also scavenge for food together and share anything found. Lemon shark is a real team player and works hard to make sure everyone in her aggregation is healthy and fed. One of Lemon Shark’s only fault is that she often preys on juvenile lemon sharks; she is loyal to her aggregation but anything else is fair game. Because of Lemon sharks tremendous ability to work well with others and having only a minor fault of cannibalism Lemon Shark scores a 6.9/10 in Social Skills.
The final category for judging Lemon Shark is Health. She has a promising predicted life span of 27 years. An important part of her healthy lifestyle is her dedication to fitness. Lemon Shark migrates around the east coast travel over 620 miles in order to reach mating sites. She rarely dives more than 80 feet and spends most of her time exercising in shallow waters. She also swims laps around coral reefs and mangroves in an attempt to keep her fitness as high as possible. Another important part of good health is eating a balanced diet. Lemon Sharks spends a majority of her day patrolling the sea for a nutritious high protein and low calorie meal. Some of her dietary favorites include a variety of bony fishes such as: catfish, mullet, jacks, porcupine fish and cowfish. Her favorite more exotic dishes are stingrays, crabs, seabirds, or guitarfish. Living the down to earth lifestyle of traveling all the time and trying new foods constantly is emotionally very rewarding but can have some dangerous setbacks. Lemon shark’s particular setbacks come as parasites known as Dermophithirius nigrelli, which can cause painful skin lesions on our contestant. Lemon Shark earns a dazzling score of 9.1/10 in Health.
The fish Pageant is a competition for elite underwater characters and Lemon Shark definitely falls into this category. With her stellar appearance and love for health she has made quite the impact this week. I would say that her strongest skill was definitely her ability to work in such an organized and effective groups. Her performance this week has earned her an overall score of 7.9/10.
