Newquay’s Blue Reef Aquarium has come up with a Christmas present with a difference in the shape of a shark.

The award-winning aquarium has donated a quartet of baby bamboo sharks to the Falmouth Marine School to help populate a new tropical display which is being built at the site as part of their marine science courses.

The tropical sharks, which each measure close to 30 cms in length were born at the aquarium as part of a captive-breeding programme.

Blue Reef curator Matt Slater said: “We already work closely with Cornwall College and on a recent visit to Falmouth Marine School we found out they’re in the process of creating a large new tropical marine display and have been looking at ways to help stock it.

“Fortunately the captive breeding programme we’re running here at the aquarium has been so successful that we’ve had more than 30 baby sharks born in the past few months alone.

“The aim of the programme is to be able to help provide other aquariums with captive-bred stock which helps to ease the pressure on wild populations and we were only too pleased to be able to offer the sharks to Falmouth,” he added.

Part of Cornwall College, Falmouth Marine School provides a selection of marine based courses from boatbuilding and marine engineering and leisure & water sports to marine science.

In addition to marine biology students can also study oceanography, meteorology and ecology.

Found throughout the Indo-Pacific bamboo sharks usually live around coral reefs and tidepools. They pose no threat to humans and only reach a maximum of a metre in length when fully grown.

Although born with dark bands across their bodies these will gradually fade as they mature and adults are usually a light brown colour.

Bamboo sharks actually prefer shallow waters, however they regularly become stranded in rockpools during low tide. To combat this they have the ability to survive for periods of time out of water.