Parasites! The World Inside of Sharks with Dr Bjoern Schaeffner and Dr Jaime Penadés Suay

[upbeat music] Hello everyone, and welcome back to World of Sharks, a podcast all about sharks, rays, and the ocean that they call home, brought to you by the Save Our Seas Foundation.

My name is Isla.

I'm a scientist and science communicator for the Save Our Seas Foundation, and every episode, I sit down with experts in shark science, conservation, education, and storytelling to take you on a deep dive into a different part of the wonderful world of sharks.

Now, what do you think of when I say the word parasite? Do you shudder? Do you get the ick? Do you think of a scene from a horror movie? Or do you not think much about them at all? Well, listener, I was very much the same until we recorded this episode.

I'd honestly not considered parasites much at all, aside from maybe being worried about tapeworms, and I'd definitely not thought about them in the context of sharks.

Of course, I knew about things like parasitic copepods that hitch a ride on basking sharks, or specifically the eyes of Greenland sharks.

And a few years ago, I'd actually been horrified to learn about the shark-eating barnacle.

Give it a Google, guys.

Honestly, you won't be disappointed.

Maybe a little weirded out, but it'll definitely fascinate you.

But apart from those things, I didn't know much about parasites at all, and definitely not how important they are.

But that has all changed because a few months ago, I received an email from friend of the pod, Jaime Penadés-Sueiro.

You might remember Jaime from an earlier episode where he came on to talk about the importance of language diversity in science, encouraging scientific publications and science communication to be presented in different languages to make research more accessible.

As a native Spanish speaker, this is something Jaime is very passionate about, but something else he is passionate about and an actual expert in is shark parasitology.

Jaime got in touch to say he was running a workshop at the upcoming Sharks International in Sri Lanka, which handily I was also attending, all about the parasites living inside of sharks, and he wanted to know if I was up for making a podcast about it.

And I thought, you know what? Why not? But little did I know that my mind was about to be blown.

Sharks International is a conference that happens once every four years and is the largest gathering of shark scientists in the world.

Think of it a bit like the Olympics, but for shark nerds.

[laughs] I'd actually met Jaime at the last Sharks International, which was in Valencia in Spain, which he organized, and we even talked then about a podcast on parasites, and I am so glad that four years later, we actually made it happen.

And this also means that alongside hearing Jaime's voice again, which is lovely, we also get to meet Dr. Bjørn Schaffner, parasitologist and associate professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at St. George's University.

Bjørn was in Sri Lanka to host the workshop on shark parasites alongside Jaime, and if there's anyone who can convince you that parasites are worth knowing about, it's him.

Bjørn is a leading expert in the internal parasites of sharks, rays, and chimeras, and as you'll hear in this episode, he just loves them, and his enthusiasm for them is infectious.

Pun intended.

This episode was recorded in person at Sharks International, and it's kind of split into two halves.

The first half is a super fascinating conversation that I had with both Jaime and Bjørn, where they gave me the lowdown on shark parasites, what kind of parasites we can find in sharks, the impacts on their hosts, and their integral role in the health, function, and diversity of the whole ecosystem.

And then in the second half, we head to Negombo on the west coast of Sri Lanka and follow Jaime, Bjørn, and their colleague, Storm, as they teach attendees of the conference how to look for and extract parasites for the purposes of scientific research.

Sounds kind of grim, but it was so much fun, and I learned a whole lot, and we even found some species that are potentially new to science.

Just a heads-up here, the workshop did involve the dissection of sharks and rays.

These had been collected at the fish market earlier in the morning, so they would've been sold and eaten if not used for the purposes of scientific research.

But that means that the second half of this podcast does involve some very faint sounds and discussion of shark dissection.

If that's not your bag, that's totally cool.

It starts at around 35 minutes, and I'll give you a warning before we head into that part, so you can just end the episode there if you like.

But I would encourage you to listen to the interview with Bjorn and Jaime, because talking to them really changed my perception of how incredibly well-adapted and important these animals are.

And if you're cool with dissection and you wanna learn more about that side of things, then please join us.

It was so, so interesting, and you really get to hear Jaime and Bjorn in their natural habitat, which is just [laughs] great to listen to.

Okay, I've talked about it enough.

Without further ado, grab your lab coats and get ready to head to a very hot and humid outdoor lab in Sri Lanka, and let's dive into our episode.

[upbeat music] Hello everyone, and welcome back to World of Sharks, a podcast all about sharks, rays, and the ocean that they call home, brought to you by the Save Our Seas Foundation.

My name is Isla.

I'm a scientist and science communicator for the Save Our Seas Foundation, and every episode, I sit down with experts in shark science, conservation, education, and storytelling to take you on a deep dive into a different part of the wonderful world of sharks.

Now, what do you think of when I say the word parasite? Do you shudder? Do you get the ick? Do you think of a scene from a horror movie? Or do you not think much about them at all? Well, listener, I was very much the same until we recorded this episode.

I'd honestly not considered parasites much at all, aside from maybe being worried about tapeworms, and I'd definitely not thought about them in the context of sharks.

Of course, I knew about things like parasitic copepods that hitch a ride on basking sharks, or specifically the eyes of Greenland sharks.

And a few years ago, I'd actually been horrified to learn about the shark-eating barnacle.

Give it a Google, guys.

Honestly, you won't be disappointed.

Maybe a little weirded out, but it'll definitely fascinate you.

But apart from those things, I didn't know much about parasites at all, and definitely not how important they are.

But that has all changed because a few months ago, I received an email from friend of the pod, Jaime Penadés-Sueiro.

You might remember Jaime from an earlier episode where he came on to talk about the importance of language diversity in science, encouraging scientific publications and science communication to be presented in different languages to make research more accessible.

As a native Spanish speaker, this is something Jaime is very passionate about, but something else he is passionate about and an actual expert in is shark parasitology.

Jaime got in touch to say he was running a workshop at the upcoming Sharks International in Sri Lanka, which handily I was also attending, all about the parasites living inside of sharks, and he wanted to know if I was up for making a podcast about it.

And I thought, you know what? Why not? But little did I know that my mind was about to be blown.

Sharks International is a conference that happens once every four years and is the largest gathering of shark scientists in the world.

Think of it a bit like the Olympics, but for shark nerds.

[laughs] I'd actually met Jaime at the last Sharks International, which was in Valencia in Spain, which he organized, and we even talked then about a podcast on parasites, and I am so glad that four years later, we actually made it happen.

And this also means that alongside hearing Jaime's voice again, which is lovely, we also get to meet Dr. Bjørn Schaffner, parasitologist and associate professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at St. George's University.

Bjørn was in Sri Lanka to host the workshop on shark parasites alongside Jaime, and if there's anyone who can convince you that parasites are worth knowing about, it's him.

Bjørn is a leading expert in the internal parasites of sharks, rays, and chimeras, and as you'll hear in this episode, he just loves them, and his enthusiasm for them is infectious.

Pun intended.

This episode was recorded in person at Sharks International, and it's kind of split into two halves.

The first half is a super fascinating conversation that I had with both Jaime and Bjørn, where they gave me the lowdown on shark parasites, what kind of parasites we can find in sharks, the impacts on their hosts, and their integral role in the health, function, and diversity of the whole ecosystem.

And then in the second half, we head to Negombo on the west coast of Sri Lanka and follow Jaime, Bjørn, and their colleague, Storm, as they teach attendees of the conference how to look for and extract parasites for the purposes of scientific research.

Sounds kind of grim, but it was so much fun, and I learned a whole lot, and we even found some species that are potentially new to science.

Just a heads-up here, the workshop did involve the dissection of sharks and rays.

These had been collected at the fish market earlier in the morning, so they would've been sold and eaten if not used for the purposes of scientific research.

But that means that the second half of this podcast does involve some very faint sounds and discussion of shark dissection.

If that's not your bag, that's totally cool.

It starts at around 35 minutes, and I'll give you a warning before we head into that part, so you can just end the episode there if you like.

But I would encourage you to listen to the interview with Bjorn and Jaime, because talking to them really changed my perception of how incredibly well-adapted and important these animals are.

And if you're cool with dissection and you wanna learn more about that side of things, then please join us.

It was so, so interesting, and you really get to hear Jaime and Bjorn in their natural habitat, which is just [laughs] great to listen to.

Okay, I've talked about it enough.

Without further ado, grab your lab coats and get ready to head to a very hot and humid outdoor lab in Sri Lanka, and let's dive into our episode.