'Invisible' Wetsuit Guards Divers and Surfers Against Shark Attacks in Western Australia

Is it better to be visible or invisible in the water? It all depends on whether you're scuba diving or surfing. Researchers have now developed two different types of wetsuits that can be used to deter sharks, preventing attacks in the water.

The first wetsuit, which is meant to be used by surfers, features bold, white-and-blue stripes. This makes the surfer highly visible to sharks while in the water. Although this may seem counterintuitive, it's not; stripes signal to predators that a creature probably isn't a good idea for a snack.

"Many animals in biology are repelled by noxious animals--prey that provide a signal that somehow says 'Don't eat me'--and that has been manifest in a striped pattern," said Shaun Collin from UWA's Ocean Institute in an interview with The Guardian. "We are using a lot of nature's technology, based on high-contrast-based banding patterns."

The other wetsuit isn't nearly as bright and bold. Instead, it consists of a combination of wavy, blue colors. Using new insights into sharks' perceptions of light and color blindness, this suit keeps snorkelers and scuba divers virtually invisible while in the water.

It's not surprising that researchers are trying to develop ways to deter sharks. A wave of shark attacks in Western Australia killed five people in the year to July 2012, according to BBC News. Although these attacks are usually relatively rare, the fact that more and more people are entering the water could be changing shark behaviors.

The wet suits' designs are based on a recent study published in Biology Letters. There, researchers isolated the genes that encode the cone visual pigment proteins for sharks and found that only one cone pigment gene was present. This, in turn, allowed the scientists to get a closer glimpse at how sharks view the world around them.

So far, the suits have been tested on dummies against tiger sharks. While the sharks ignored the dummies with striped suits, they sometimes "nibbled" at dummies with traditional, black wetsuits. The findings are a good indication that these suits could be used to help reduce shark attacks.

"We now know what these big predatory sharks can see, and what we have done is convert that science into marketable technology," said Hamish Jolly from SAMS in an interview with The Guardian. "We have converted that into patents that we know will hide [wearers] or present wearers as not shark food." 

Want to see a video about the new suits? Check it out here.