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Drone footage shot off the coast of Southern California may have revealed the first ever sighting of a newborn great white shark in the wild.
Wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and Phillip Sternes, a doctoral student in California, saw the 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) great white shark on July 9, 2023, 400 meters (1,300 feet) off the coast of Carpinteria, California. biology department at the University of California Riverside, while shooting video and aerial images.
Its white coloring and size immediately struck the duo as unusual. Adult great white sharks are gray on top and white below.
Gauna and Sternes examined the images and videos in the drone camera’s viewfinder and noticed a thin white film covering the shark that was falling off the animal as it moved.
“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized that the white layer was being shed from the body as it floated,” Sternes said in a news release. “I believe it was a newborn great white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”
The case for the child a great white sight
While in utero, embryonic sharks feed on unfertilized eggs for protein. The mothers provide additional nutrition to the growing shark pups with milk secreted in the uterus. It is some of this material that Gauna and Sternes believe gives the shark its unusual coloring.
They documented their observations in a study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Biology of Fishes.
“Since white sharks produce uterine milk, it is within the realm of possibility that this or another fluid could adhere to the shark just before birth,” the authors noted in the study.
If their assessment is correct, this is the first time a newborn great white shark has been observed in the wild.
“The place where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one could tell where they were born, and no one had ever seen a live newborn shark,” Gauna said in the news release. “Dead white sharks have been found inside pregnant mothers who have died. But nothing like this.”
Another possible explanation for the shark’s whitish color could be that it was caused by an unknown skin disorder, according to the study. However, Gauna and Sternes said they believe the most plausible answer is that the creature they saw was a white newborn, according to the news release.
Its shape and size were indicative of a newborn: thin with rounded fin tips, the study noted. In addition, other researchers have suggested that this location off the central coast of California is the birthplace of great white sharks.
Gauna and Sternes also noted in the study that full-grown sharks were seen in the same area on the same day as the day before the footage was captured.
“My guess is that this one was probably hours, maybe a day old at most,” Sternes said.
Speculative discovery?
Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Shark Research Program at the University of Florida and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said the sighting may have been a newborn great white shark, but said the result was “very speculative. “
“White sharks usually have 8 to 12 pups at a time, so where are the others,” Naylor, who was not involved in the study, said via email.
Nicholas Ray, a researcher at the University of Nottingham Trent in the United Kingdom, who has studied the amazing dynamics of the white shark population in South Africa, called the sighting documented by Gauna and Sternes “amazing.”
“This observation is extremely significant and marks the beginning of scientists’ understanding of the obscure reproductive cycles of this endangered species. It could open the door to a new discovery and reinforce the need for better protection in these areas,” Ray, who was not involved in this study, said in an email.
It may be significant that the baby shark was filmed so close to the coast as its age means it was probably born in shallow waters. Other shark experts believe great whites are caught further out to sea, according to the news release.
“Other researchers have speculated that white sharks spawn in shallow, coastal waters in this region, but it has never been observed,” said Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and author of the book “Chasing Shadows: My A Lifetime Tracking the Great White Shark.”
“Although the presence of this young white shark supports this hypothesis, the actual birth was not observed. We cannot rule out that the shark, which is quite mobile, may have moved a long distance from its birthplace. Regardless, this is a very encouraging observation.”
“Further investigation and additional evidence for support or refutation is needed,” according to the study.
“However, in either case, the use of the aerial drone provided another interesting set of information for shark science,” the study authors said.
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