Researchers have made a sensational discovery off the coast of California. They took pictures of what is believed to be a newborn great white shark. A video shows the young animal surrounded by a milky white film – this could be the embryonic layer.
With their discovery, wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and biology PhD student Phillip Sternes from the University of California, Riverside are making history – no one has ever (knowingly) seen a newborn great white shark.
The suspected newborn baby of the great white shark can be seen in this video:
The animal, which the scientists were able to observe with a drone, was about 1.5 meters long. Researchers had previously frequently seen “really large, fully grown and possibly pregnant” sharks in an area in Santa Barbara, Gauna explained. That’s why they lay in wait there to capture a newborn baby with their camera.
And their patience was finally rewarded: after eight to nine hours of filming in one day, they saw a large shark sink into the water and disappear. “What came out was this beautiful, little, literally great white shark,” Gauna said. Adult great white sharks are not pure white, but have a gray dorsal color.
White matter can still come out of the uterus
The milky white substance is also an indication that it is a newborn baby. Gregory B. Skomal, Ph.D., senior fisheries scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said, “We can probably assume this is the case (note: it’s a baby shark) as” this milky white coating is due to the fact that it was recently in the womb.” But it could also be that the shark suffers from a skin disease, the UC Riverside researchers admit.
On the trail of the “great secret of the ocean”.
With the recording you may be a little closer to solving a mystery, an expert explains. “Where white sharks actually give birth remains one of the great mysteries of the ocean,” said Tobey Curtis, a fisheries management specialist and shark ecologist, according to The Washington Post. “Very young great white sharks have been observed and studied in a number of locations, including the coast of Southern California and New York’s Long Island, but we still don’t know exactly where they were born.”
Source: Krone
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