The question of where basking sharks — the world's second largest fish — in the western Atlantic go in winter has been answered.
Gregory Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries in Oak Bluffs and his colleagues tagged 25 basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) with temperature, depth and light-level recorders that popped off after a given interval. Reconstructing six of the creatures' travels, the researchers found that the sharks covered distances of about 9,000 kilometres and dived to depths of up to 1,000 metres, heading to deep tropical waters in the winter.
The sharks were formerly thought to be restricted to temperate waters, and the researchers are not sure why they travel so far. Perhaps, they speculate, their young are born deep in the tropics.
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Migration: The long bask. Nature 459, 142 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/459142a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/459142a
