Air Date: Week of July 4, 2025

A shark eyes the camera. (Photo: © Mark Seth Lender)

Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender has photographed animals all over the world, including under the sea. He shared this observation from a dive in the Bahamas where he was photographing Caribbean reef sharks.

Transcript

O’NEILL: It’s Living on Earth, I’m Aynsley O’Neill.

DOERING: And I’m Jenni Doering.

Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender has photographed animals all over the world, including under the sea. And he shared this observation from a dive in the Bahamas where he was photographing Caribbean reef sharks.

Close Encounters of the Extraordinary Kind
Caribbean Reef Shark
Grand Bahama island

- II -
Sight

Standing on the ocean floor, how natural it all becomes. How quickly you forget, moment by moment, your air is running out. The only color that survives down here is blue. A soft milky blue. The only creatures that belong here can breathe, water as if it is air.

The impenetrable distance tapers to black.

Out of the airless deep out of the darkness come the sharks.

The camera housing in my hands, its round portal looking into the sea is clear, as glass; but from the outside it reflects. The sharks in that reflection find… another shark. These sharks know each other well. Each has her own physiognomy, different scars and shape. Different bodies, and manner. Instead in the curvature of the glass they see a shark they have never seen. One approaches her – and hits the glass! Another the same!

Something is in the way. Something is wrong.

The shark in the distance never reaches them nor they her. Whatever the usual response would be from this strange shark… is absent. There is no sign and countersign. No scent. No impulse of electricity coursing synapses, nor muscles firing as there should be.

No heartbeat.

The sharks swim in to look but stand off now, do not collide. Every one of them takes her turn. Again and again. Until, eventually they swim off.

Except for two.

These two, stay.

They slow down; their eyes move casting over the image there in the glass.

Once more one of them taps the reflection. As if to make sure.

Sure of what? What have the sharks seen? What does it mean to them? They evaluate this underwater world in a manner we cannot. They know, the stranger moves as they themselves move, matching their speed, towards or away precisely; and looks back at them, precisely, meeting their eyes with her own obscure and shining eyes exactly the same way.

What have the sharks seen? What can it be?

Have the sharks seen The Self?

DOERING: That’s Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence, Mark Seth Lender.

 

Links

Mark Seth Lender’s website.

More on safety diver and shark expert, Cristina Zenato.