Aquarists at Hastings’ Blue Reef Aquarium have picked a name for their newly-arrived blacktip reef shark with the help of younger visitors.
The Rock-a-Nore Road wildlife attraction invited youngsters to choose a suitable name for the baby shark.
They received close to 50 suggestions and have spent the past week sifting through entries before picking a winner.
After much debate, they opted for ‘Razor’, which was suggested by nine-year-old Reece Pellosis from Ashford in Kent.
Blue Reef’s Leanna Lawson said: “We were delighted with the response we got from people and the number of names they came up with.
“It was really difficult to pick an overall winner but in the end, we all agreed on one particular name which we felt was the most appropriate.
“Our senior aquarist Rob Gasson felt it was the most suitable as sharks are exclusively carnivores and most people describe their teeth as being ‘razor sharp’,” she added.
Other names which came under consideration included; Feargal, Finley, Snap and Sydney.
As well as having a shark named in his honour, Reece will also receive a year’s annual pass to visit the aquarium.
The blacktip reef shark is one of the three most common sharks inhabiting coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific along with the whitetip and grey reef sharks.
Belonging to the same family as the great white shark, blacktips only reach a maximum size of around 1.6 metres.
They are active predators and feed on a wide variety of prey including small fish, octopus, squid and crustaceans. They have also been known to eat sea snakes and even seabirds.
They give birth to live young which can hunt as soon as they are born.