A female shark is to be named ‘Elsa’ in honour of the animated heroine from ‘Frozen’ following a competition at Hastings’ Blue Reef Aquarium.
The Rock-a-Nore Road wildlife attraction invited youngsters to choose a suitable name for the young female shark after an earlier request to name a male shark proved popular.
However staff weren’t prepared for the overwhelming interest the naming competition caused, with more than170 entries flooding in – over three times the number who entered the previous competition.
In the end, they opted for ‘Elsa’, which was suggested by both four-year-old Sophie, from Hastings and four-year-old Ami-Leigh, from Bromley in Kent.
Blue Reef’s Leanna Lawson said: “We were delighted with the response we got from our initial naming competition for Razor but we weren’t prepared for the level of interest this time around.
“Once again it was really difficult to pick an overall winner but we ended up choosing ‘Elsa’, which was actually put forward by two youngsters who clearly enjoy Disney animated films!” she added.
Other names which came under consideration included; Midnight, Shimmer, Coral and Betsy.
As well as having a shark named in their honour, both girls 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 havealso been known to eat sea snakes and even seabirds.
They give birth to live young which can hunt as soon as they are born.