Curiosity or aggressivity? Surface predatory behavior of the great white shark

The Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is an important top predator; however a little is known about its behaviour. During five study expeditions surface behaviour of Great White Sharks living in Dyer Island (South Africa) was observed. Aims of the research were to give more data in order to confirm the hypothesis that this area could be considered as a “training place”, where young sharks can learn new predator techniques, and to understand what is shark approach to a unnatural, floating and passive prey. By comparing behaviours performed by young and mature specimens, our data showed that latters exhibited more complex ethograms. Sharks showed also a curiosity approach to passive preys employed for this studies, with a strong predominance of the parading.