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24 November 2009
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		Wildfacts Get the facts on Australasia's wildlife

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A jellyfish in shark bay. © BBC Andrew Penniket

Shark Bay
Shark Bay, on the most westerly point of Australia, is an idyllic place. Dolphins glide through calm turquoise water, ancient life forms still flourish and 'mermaids' cruise gently through underwater meadows.

Sea grass is the foundation of most of the life of Shark Bay and these aquatic grasslands cover 4,000km² - nearly a third of the bay. That makes this the largest area of sea grass anywhere in the world. The community which inhabits these submarine pastures is as diverse and fascinating as any coral reef and includes psychedelic sea slugs, cryptic crabs and bizarre fish, all toiling away and largely hidden among the fronds.

These prairies are also where mermaids roam! The mermaids are in fact dugongs, giant marine herbivores, once mistaken for the mythical beauties by sailors that had spend too long at sea…

	Find out more on the Nature website...
	Blue Planet: whale watching down under
	Wildfacts: discover who visits the waters around Australia Dugong Bottlenose dolphin

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		Dugong Dugongs, also rather appropriately called sea cows, spend up to eight hours a day grazing Shark Bay's underwater pastures. They have 30m of gut in which to digest their grassy diet which gives them their portly appearance. These languid creatures could hardly be described as beautiful but they do have a certain grace underwater as well as a surprising turn of speed - critical for avoiding predatory tiger sharks. The world's largest population of dugongs - over 10,000 animals - feed year-round in Shark Bay, the southern limit of their range.
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		Dolphins At Monkey Mia on the west coast, a few individual dolphins have learned that if they come to the beach at certain times, they'll get a free fish. The relationship, which began back in the 1960s when fishermen tossed unwanted fish to passing dolphins, now attracts 100,000 tourists to this remote outpost of Western Australia every year. All the other dolphins in the bay catch their own food, searching the underwater prairies with their sonar for fish hidden in the grass or under the sand.
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		Stromatolites In a few coves deep within Shark Bay there are living fossils which have remained unchanged in form for over three billion years. These are stromatolites and though they may look like concrete pillars they are alive. They're formed by filaments of microscopic blue green algae which trap sediment particles as they grow, building up a pillar on top of which the living algae multiply. These ancient plants are slow growers and add just a few millimetres of sediment per year, which makes the metre high domes at least 1,000 years old. Shark Bay's unique conditions make it one of the few places where stromatolites still survive.
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