You’ll need a bigger boat — when these puppies grow up.
Two men filming drone footage off California’s central coast may have accidentally captured the first sighting of a newborn great white shark.
Wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and Phillip Sternes, an organismal biologist at UC Riverside, were filming in coastal waters near Santa Barbara on July 9, 2023 when the pair made an interesting discovery on Gauna’s drone camera viewfinder: a pure white, nearly 5- leg-long baby shark.
Great white sharks, which scientists call great white sharks, actually have two colors with gray on top and a white belly, according to UC Riverside.
Upon seeing the fish’s unusual chalky skin, and what looked like hints of gray skin peeking out from under the white, rubbery-looking substance, the two knew they had to investigate further.
“We magnified the image, put it in slow motion, and realized the white layer had been removed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said. “I believe it’s a newborn great white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”
The recordings and observations are both published in a new paper in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes. Their findings could finally provide the scientific community with some clues about the elusive birthplace of the white man, which has long been shrouded in mystery.
A newborn great white shark was caught on drone camera off the coast of California last summer, in what scientists believe may be the first sighting of its kind. CarlosGauna/TheMalibuArtist/SWNS
“Where great white sharks spawn is one of the holy grails of shark science. “No one has ever been able to determine where they were born, and no one has ever seen a newborn baby shark alive,” Gauna said. “There was a dead white shark found inside a pregnant woman who died. But nothing like this.”
Tobey Curtis, Fisheries Management Specialist in NOAA Fisheries’ Atlantic High Migratory Species Management Division, acknowledged the rarity of the find in an email to The Post.
“Sightings of free-swimming newborn white sharks are extremely rare, and any new video or photographic evidence could be invaluable,” he said.
“As the use of drones becomes more accessible to the public, we are likely to document more unique or unusual wildlife behavior, including where many species of sharks mate and give birth. Such observations can help us better conserve this species and its important habitat.”
According to Science.org, the study’s co-authors believe milky white matter may be just that: remnants of uterine milk produced by pregnant great whites to feed their young during the pregnancy phase.
Sternes and Gauna both acknowledge the possibility that the white matter may just be a skin condition, but consider that a remote possibility.
The photo may shed light on one of the “holy grails of shark science.” CarlosGauna/TheMalibuArtist/SWNS
“If that’s what we’re seeing, then that’s also monumental because nothing like this has ever been reported for this shark,” Gauna said.
Great white sharks have fascinated, and terrified, humans for centuries. Their aggressive nature and gaping mouth filled with some 300 razor-sharp teeth make them perfect nightmare fuel.
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film “Jaws” cemented the great white man’s place in popular culture, and fueled the paranoia of many ocean swimmers about what might be lurking in the depths below.
In reality, great white attacks are extremely rare, averaging just 70 each year. According to Field & Stream, a person is seven times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be struck by a great white.
The largest great whites can reach 21 feet in length, with most weighing between 1,500-4,000 pounds, according to Britannica.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
