Communing with our Cartilaginous Brethren

I stood over the tank, my arm plunged elbow-deep in the water, praying the shark would come to me. "Remember to keep your palm flat, and touch the animals in this area--the middle of their back," the New England Aquarium (NEAQ) staff member said. She was perched on a rock within the exhibit--the Shark and Ray Touch Tank--and so far I'd been there for a couple cycles of her reminders. The kids around me seemed to have trouble remembering this--they lunged towards the cownose rays, Atlantic rays and epaulette sharks, poking them, grabbing them and--occasionally--keeping their palm flat and touching the animals in the middle of their back.

But who am I to talk? The second that a cownose ray got close to me, I had the overwhelming urge to do the same. Fighting that urge took all the strength I had, and suddenly, there he was, gliding under my flat palm with his smooth, slick back. It was like a flare had shot off inside my belly; it was, thrilling.

My husband Dan and I had gotten married at the NEAQ the past fall, and we'd received a free one-year membership. On Monday, (President's Day) it seemed only right to honor our previous leaders by romping about the aquarium. Every mother, father and child within an 80-mile radius of Boston had the same idea.

I was most excited to see the chondrichthyans--a group comprised of sharks, rays and chimaeras--because I've been auditing an edX course online exploring sharks called Sharks! Global Biodiversity, Biology, and Conservation. The exclamation point in the class name is well-played; chondrichthyans have weathered many evolutionary storms (aka mass extinctions, of which there have been five throughout time) throughout their 500 million years of existence. New members of the group are still being discovered to this day.

Through the class I've also learned that scientists believe we may have entered earth's sixth mass extinction due to the impact of human activities. I had this thought in mind as I stood at the tank on Monday, watching the fluttering and flapping arms of the rays, and the graceful serpentining body of the small sharks. Touching the tough skin of an epaulette shark who was lounging on a rock (under the benediction of the NEAQ staff member), I felt like I was touching a secret deep in the earth, something precious and vital. The thought clung to me as I left the exhibit, washed my hands and watched an impossibly small shark embryo wiggling in his pod in another exhibit on epaulette sharks. With the pod backlit, I could see his pinky-finger body length writhing, eager to break free and enter the dangerous and beautiful world.