A leopard shark named Leo
Leo is my partner. I put work on it. But with Leo (and you might find it hard to believe), there is no politics in the office, he does not indulge in gossip, and he is never embarrassed at office Christmas parties. You may occasionally try to eat more than your fair share at lunchtime, but you are so polite that no one takes offense. He is not very talkative, but you have the feeling that he is attentive to what is going on around him. He is also the only one of his kind in his family.
You see, Leo is a leopard shark. If you want to speak technically in Latin, its formal name is Stegostama fasciatum But everyone at work just calls him Leo; Which, in the truly Australian way of giving things unoriginal nicknames, is because it has the same skin markings as, yes, you guessed it, a leopard. However, I have to say that their markings are where the similarity ends. Leo doesn’t run anywhere, can’t climb trees, and isn’t particularly stealthy … although he doesn’t mind spending time alone. In fact, Leo was born looking more like a crosswalk than a member of the big cat family, so he’s actually a zebra shark … except he lost his rays in his old age and everyone calls him a leopard shark. . But you have to be careful because there is a leopard shark in the United States that looks nothing like ours, so it can be terribly confusing.
Anyway, Leo is the quiet winner of the job. He just takes care of his own affairs and does not interfere with anyone else’s. He will probably never be famous; It doesn’t really have the flashy appearance or sharp teeth that attract the attention of the press or the public. But that doesn’t mean that zebra sharks are in less danger than their famous large toothed cousins. Zebra sharks are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species because people eat them and they like their fins too … and Leo has some serious fins. Their tail fin is as long as their body and these sharks can grow up to 3 meters long. In the wild, they are found throughout the Indo-Pacific, from southern Africa and the Red Sea to India, most of Southeast Asia, New Guinea, New Caledonia, and northern Australia. So basically they like the heat and they like the pretty as they can usually be found prowling the coral reefs.
It has a large, bullish head that tapers to a slim tail and is nothing a little like an eel, but on a large scale. It has small eyes, but considering that in the wild it would hunt at night and in coral crevices, it probably doesn’t need them. No one seems to really know why they start life as a zebra shark and then develop their leopard print pattern and Leo is certainly not saying it.
But then again, I don’t think Leo is really upset about his name or what he looks like. He is happy as long as he can eat and then sleep and then eat some more. I’m lucky to be able to hang out with him every day. In fact, I call him partner.
