[Rach]

Hi,
I'm a school student and we raise and release brown banded bamboo sharks at my school...
Before the holidays our shark was a definite male, now he seems to be female

is this possible?

[Ninong]

Hi Rach,




According to fishbase, Chiloscyllium punctatum is dioecious (that means separate males and females). I'm not absolutely positive, but I believe that's true for all sharks.

Check out this detailed explanation on how to sex sharks. You might want to read that entire article; it contains a lot of good information.

What is the size of your shark right now? How large was it when you first got it? Are you positive that it had claspers before and now they're gone?



P.S. -- If it were possible for this fish to change from male to female, they would have described it as a protandrous hermaphrodite (like all clownfishes), but they didn't. Again, I'm almost certain that all sharks are dioecious.