In October 2014, marine biology professor Peter J. Mumby came across an adult female grey reef shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) that was missing her first dorsal fin. She was encountered while ...

Since then, many scientists have suggested it was derived from the dorsal fin but nobody had studied the development of the remora from its earliest larval stages. “One reason I think this hasn’t been ...

Shark #409834 spotted a year later, in June 2023, with a healed dorsal fin. Josh Schellenberg, CC BY-ND. I knew immediately it had to be #409834 from the previous summer.