We now have the proof: this bay is a real nursery area for sandbar sharks, the only known in the Mediterranean sea! We suspected it of course - the presence of large, pregnant females was a very strong hint - but we now have the evidence to prove it. We filmed the birth of a shark! But it's not just that: we recovered from the bottom of the bay to stillborn babies, stil wrapped in their placenta. Yes - placenta: because developping baby sandbars are fed by their mothers through the umbilical cord, just like mammals do. Simona explains how:
	"There are over 400 species of sharks in the world, which developed three different ways to produce their young. The first group, the Oviparous, lay their eggs in the sea. The embrios of the second group, the aplacental viviparous, grow inside their mothers feeding on their own yolk sac until they are ready to be born. Some may even eat their siblings - through an electronic microscope a thresher shark embrio was found to have perfectly formed and functional teeth. The embrios of the third group, the placental viviparous, get their nourishment directly from their mothers through the placenta - this is what happens with sandbar sharks. Placenta is not the only similar evolutionary path that mammals and sharks have chosen: they both reach sexual maturity later in life (around 12 for sandbar sharks), they both have small numbers of babies and very long gestation periods (9 to 12 month in C. plumbeus)
DNA analysis	Thanks to the stillborns and the placenta of the live baby, we now have samples on which we can make DNA analysis. We would need many more samples to be able to give a genetic "first and last name" on these sandbar shark. We would need many more to discover if they come from all over the Mediterranean sea of from the Atlantic. We know nothing about them, a genetic analysis on these animals have never been done in the Med... but this is certainly a good starting point.
How big is a baby?	No-one had ever seen a baby sandbar in the Med before: thanks to the stillborn we now have the precise length at birth of Mediterranean sandbar sharks, something which was not yet known.
	Simona extracted the brain of one stillborn, which will be studied by a professor from the University of Bologna.
	The babies were then immersed in alcool and stored for their trip to Italy, to be later measured.
	And now read an excerpt from our expedition logbook, to re-live the moment of birth. "C"