The sharks discovery could help researchers finally learn where white sharksone of the oceans top predatorsbirth their young.
The drone footage and a paper describing the findings arepublishedtoday in Environmental Biology of Fishes.
Capturing the actual birth is the holy grail of shark science.
An apparently newborn great white shark.Photo: Carlos Guana
White sharks are a formidable but vulnerable species, threatened by human bycatch and poaching.
They have several hundred teeth, and the largest individuals can grow to be 20 feet long.
The recently spotted shark was much smaller than an adultlike, fresh-out-the-womb smaller.
The shark’s posterior, shedding some of the white film.Photo: Carlos Guana
The researchers posit that the pale film was made of some intrauterine substances that remained stuck to the animal.
White sharks consume this fluid as well as other eggs in their mothers uterus.
The skin disorder explanation fails to take into account the fins, especially the dorsal fin, he added.
I dont believe a skin disorder exists that changes the shape of a dorsal fin.
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And in a new study Friday, researchers have found that some of these bites are wholly defensive.
