By Jennifer Viegas
DiscoveryNews

The thousands of sharks that emptied Florida beaches this week are later than usual, but their purpose sounds like the usual spring break itinerary: gulping down food, having sex and seeking warmth, according to shark experts.

The dramatic aggregation consists primarily of blacktip and spinner sharks, with hammerhead, bull, lemon and tiger sharks also in the mix, according to Derek Burkholder of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Nova Southeastern University.

"During this migration, tens of thousands of sharks are moving up the coast to waters further north where they will spend the summer months before heading back down here for the winter," Burkholder told Discovery News. "The sharks can be found very close to shore -- within a few feet -- as they follow baitfish."

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George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research based at the Florida Museum of Natural History, likens the mass grouping to people lined up to get into a football stadium. He said that sharks are actually backed up, trying to get in the warm water stream.

"Nookie is going on too," he said. "Sharks tend to mate during this time."

Both he and Burkholder remarked that the migration is happening later this year.

"Sharks are temperature dependent. The ups and downs of global climate change can affect water temps," Burgess explained.

Humans, he said, are no different, since we can tolerate some climates more so than others.

"That's why a bunch of people live in Florida, but not at the North Pole," he deadpanned.

NBC News

A "swarm" of blacktips sharks, and others, has filled the waters off of Florida for spring break.

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The later migration coincided perfectly with this year’s spring break, when numerous college students head to beach towns to relax and party. Florida is the most dangerous state in the United States, in terms of shark attacks, and such encounters are at a 12-year high now.

The sharks in the swarm are known to bite people, but usually these are “hit and run” attacks, Burgess said. Researchers actually document these attacks to track the movement of the big shark congregation as it moves northward.

The good news is that "humans are not on the sharks' normal menu," Burkholder said, adding that it's "almost always a case of mistaken identity, especially in areas where the water is murky or near dusk or dawn, where the shark bites a swimmer thinking they are their normal fish prey."

"This is also the reason that most bites from these species are not fatal attacks," he added. "When the shark realizes its mistake, it lets go and does not continue the attack."

He and Mahmood Shivji, director of both the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Shark Center USA, believe the swarm is misleading, though, since it can give the false impression that shark populations are booming.

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"Just because we now see swarms of sharks does not mean there are more sharks," Shivji, who is also a professor at the Oceanographic Center, explained. "The reason we are now aware of them is because people are increasingly taking aerial pictures, which was not done until a few years ago. With all the sharks being overfished, it could very well be if such pictures were routinely taken 15 years ago, we might have seen swarms 2-3 times as big."

Nevertheless, swimmers and other recreational water users would do well to take heed. Burgess said the migration would be heading to places like the Chesapeake Bay, waters off of North Carolina, and parts of New Jersey. Some sharks might follow waterways from East to West, such as going deeper into the Gulf of Mexico.

"If you've been in such waters before, you have probably been 10 to 15 away from a shark and just didn't know it," Burgess said.

UF IFAS / Sean McCann

An adult gallinipper feeding on human blood.

One of the most ferocious insects you've ever heard of — it's the size of a quarter and its painful bite has been compared to being knifed — is set to invade Florida this summer.

The Sunshine State, already home to man-eating sinkholes, invading Burmese pythons, swarming sharks, tropical storms and other disasters, can expect to see an explosion of shaggy-haired gallinippers (Psorophora ciliata), a type of giant mosquito, according to entomologist Phil Kaufman of the University of Florida.

Gallinipper eggs hatch after a rainstorm or flood, and the state saw a big jump in the numbers of gallinippers last summer after Tropical Storm Debby dumped its load on Florida. Eggs laid last year could produce a bumper crop of the blood-sucking bugs this summer if Florida sees a soggy rainy season.

"I wouldn't be surprised, given the numbers we saw last year," Kaufman said in a statement. "When we hit the rainy cycle, we may see that again."

As insects go, gallinippers are particularly formidable. Their eggs lay dormant for years, awaiting the floodwaters that will enable them to hatch. Even in their larval stage, gallinippers are so tough they'll eat tadpoles and other small aquatic prey. [Ouch! Nature's 10 Biggest Pests]

And as adults, the voracious pests feed day and night (unlike everyday mosquitoes, which generally feed only at dawn and dusk). Their bodies are strong enough to bite through clothing, and they're known to go after pets, wild animals and even fish, MyFoxOrlando.com reports.

"It's about 20 times bigger than the sort of typical, Florida mosquito that you find," Anthony Pelaez of Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry told Fox Orlando. "And it's mean, and it goes after people, and it bites, and it hurts."

Pelaez described the gallinipper's bite as so painful it "feels like you're being stabbed."

The term "gallinipper" isn't recognized by most entomologists, but over the past century, the word — and the insect — entered popular legend through Southern folktales, minstrel shows and blues songs, according to a report from the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida.

The earliest description of the pest comes from 1897 by a writer who called the insect "the shyest, slyest, meanest and most venomous of them all." (Gallinipper bites don't actually contain any venom — they just feel that painful.)

Will insect repellents help to protect people from the dreaded gallinipper? Maybe, Kaufman said, though the pests may be more resistant to bug repellents — even those containing DEET — because of their large size.

If there's a silver lining to a possible invasion of gallinippers, it's the fact that their larvae are so ravenous they eat the larvae of other insects, including mosquitoes, thus reducing the populations of those pests. And they're not known to carry any diseases, though that may be small comfort to beleaguered Floridians.

Email Marc Lallanilla or follow him @MarcLallanilla. Follow us on Twitter @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

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Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

A man was arrested after posting photos on Facebook that showed him picking up a manatee.

By LiveScience staff

A man has been arrested in Florida after posting pictures on Facebook that showed him harassing a baby manatee, authorities announced this week.

The incriminating images show Ryan William Waterman, 21, and his two children petting a manatee calf at Taylor Creek in Fort Pierce last month, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). In one shot, Waterman is holding the calf partially out of the shallow water, and in another image, one of his young children is sitting on top of the animal as if riding it.

While the family's actions might look playful, biologists said such contact could be deadly for a manatee calf.

"This was a young manatee, which was likely still dependent on its mother for food and protection. Separating the two could have severe consequences for the calf," FWC manatee biologist Thomas Reinert said in a statement. [Photos: World's Cutest Baby Wild Animals]

"The calf also appeared to be experiencing manatee cold-stress syndrome, a condition that can lead to death in extreme cases," Reinert added. "Taking the calf out of the water may have worsened its situation."

Waterman faces charges under the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act, which makes it illegal to molest, harass or disturb manatees, classified as an endangered species in the state. His offense also violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which makes it illegal to hunt or get up close to manatees as well as all other marine mammals, such as whales, seals and walruses.

These laws, however, have not prevented some recent close encounters in Florida, perhaps due to a lack of awareness. (Waterman, in fact, told local television station WPEC-TV that he meant no harm and didn't know it was illegal to touch a manatee.)

In December, a woman snapped pictures at Pompano Beach, on Florida's Atlantic coast, of swimmers who might have been trying to ride a sickly sperm whale. The 35-foot-long creature was reported to be flapping its tail at the time of the incident and eventually washed ashore dead.

And last October, a woman turned herself in after photos surfaced showing her riding a manatee at Florida's Fort DeSoto Park near Tampa. At the time, reports suggested she could have faced up to 60 days in jail and a possible fine of $500 for her crime.

There are estimated to be just 3,800 manatees in Florida, and each year, about 87 are killed by humans, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, most of them dying in boat collisions. Coastal development, which has altered and destroyed manatee habitat, also threatens the species.

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South Floridians who happened to be looking in the right place at the right time Sunday night saw one spectacular light show – possibly a sporadic meteor.

The Coast Guard began getting flooded with phone calls about 7:30 p.m., with reports of folks seeing flare-like objects from Jacksonville to Key West, according to Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Sabrina Laberdesque.

People called in, describing the flares “as orange or red fireballs in the sky,” Laberdesque said. The display was limited to the sky: No injuries were reported, Laberdesque said.

A sporadic meteor is basically a rocky object that comes from the asteroid belt, said Mike Hankey, operations manager for the American Meteor Society, based in Genesee, N.Y. The group logged 27 reports within about the first two hours of the event, he said.

"This is a lot of reports to come in quickly," Hankey said. 

Gauging by the reports, it happened somewhere over the ocean.

"These fireballs are common," Hankey said. "It’s rare for any one person to see one more than once or twice in their lifetime. But on any given night, it might happen somewhere in the globe a few times in a day."

Hankey added: "People should not be scared of the sky falling or anything at all."

Amanda Mayer, of West Palm Beach, said she saw something in the sky and said she thought it was somebody flashing a light. She said she hit record on her camera.

"I was like, 'Wow! That's weird," Mayer said. "I just started videotaping, and that's when it happened."

More news from NBCMiami.com

It turned out to be good timing: The ball of light appeared as she recorded, she said.

"I was pretty sure it was a meteor because of everything else that's been happening," Mayer said.

The Coast Guard said it had suspected Sunday's sighting was a meteor shower, but Hankey disagreed. "Meteor showers usually are much dimmer and faster moving," Hankey said. 

After a meteor exploded overhead near Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Friday, reportedly injuring more than 1,000 people, many people elsewhere in the world have wrongly thought that streaks they've seen in the sky, including planes, are meteors, Hankey said.

"We’re getting a lot more false reports," Hankey said.

But with false reports, the group tends to receive only one report describing an incident, Hankey said. If the same event is reported over and over in five or 10 minutes, then that’s more likely to be "a legitimate event,” or sporadic meteor, Hankey said. 

In South Florida Sunday night, the Coast Guard found that the light streak vanished in an instant. The Coast Guard sent out a helicopter to check out a report of a flare near the MacArthur Causeway in Miami, but found nothing there, Laberdesque said.

Related:

Fireball over N. California causes stir