{"id":17429,"date":"2025-03-14T08:24:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T12:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/nurse-shark\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T23:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:42:07","slug":"nurse-shark","status":"publish","type":"species","link":"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/nurse-shark\/","title":{"rendered":"Nurse shark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color:#000000\">Nurse sharks range from yellow-tan to brown, blending into the sandy ocean floor. They have two sensory barbels near their mouths, helping them detect prey in the sand. Unlike many sharks, their small, serrated teeth don\u2019t overlap, allowing them to crush shellfish and small fish. Nurse sharks can pump water over their gills while resting, so they don\u2019t need to swim constantly to breathe.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":17430,"template":"","class_list":["post-17429","species","type-species","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nurse shark | Mote Marine Laboratory &amp; Aquarium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mote.org\/animal-encyclopedia\/nurse-shark\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nurse shark | Mote Marine Laboratory &amp; Aquarium\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nurse sharks range from yellow-tan to brown, blending into the sandy ocean floor. 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