Basking Sharks Found its Hiding Place

For centuries, scientists have wondered where basking sharks go in the wintertime. Now, they have an answer -- and it's full of surprises. In the western Atlantic, the world's second largest fish swims all the way from New England to the Bahamas and across the equator to South America, a new study finds. Scientists have long thought that basking sharks spent all of their time in cooler waters. "This is equivalent to finding polar bears in Kansas," said lead researcher Greg Skomal, a marine biologist. "This was a mind-blowing discovery for us." Basking sharks have long been shrouded in mystery. These fish, which can measure 35 feet or longer, are known to live in temperate waters around the world. Yet, no one has ever examined a newborn basking shark. No one has seen a pregnant female. No one knows where the animals give birth. And until recently, no one knew where they spent much of their time, particularly in the winter. Basking sharks may look fearsome, but they are relatively gentle giants that can grow up to 33 feet long. Their size is matched in heft, with many weighing up to 8,000 pounds or about as much as a four-passenger jet. Basking sharks take it slow and easy, swimming at no more than three miles per hour by swaying their entire bodies from left to right. While they commonly are spotted near the water’s surface, some descend down to deeper waters during the winter months to escape the icy cold in less temperate portions of their wide range. For such an enormous fish basking sharks consume very tiny prey. Most of their diet consists of plankton, fish eggs, larvae and copepods, which are small freshwater crustaceans. A filter feeder, basking sharks obtain their food passively. They swim with their mouths open, filtering around 2,000 tons of water per hour. Bristlelike structures known as gill rakers trap the plankton, allowing water to exit out the gills and mouth.