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Drone footage taken off the coast of Southern California may have revealed the first image of a newborn great white shark in the wild.
The 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) white shark was spotted 400 meters (1,300 feet) off the coast of Carpinteria, California, by wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and doctoral student Phillip Sternes on July 9, 2023. While capturing aerial video and images in the biology department at the University of California Riverside.
Its pale color and size immediately seemed unusual to the duo. Adult great white sharks are gray on the upper part and white on the underside.
Gauna and Sternes examined the images and video in the drone camera’s viewfinder and noticed a thin, white film covering the shark that peeled off the animal as it moved.
“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and noticed the white coating was shedding off the body as it swam,” Sternes said in a news release. “I believe this is a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”
Baby’s wonderful white vision
While in the womb, embryonic sharks feed on unfertilized eggs for protein. Mothers provide additional nutrition to growing shark pups with a milk secreted in the uterus. Gauna and Sternes believe it is some of this material that gives the shark its unusual coloration.
They documented their observations in a study published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Biology of Fish.
“Given that white sharks produce uterine milk, there is a high probability that this or another fluid adhered to the shark just before birth,” the study’s authors said.
If their assessment is correct, this is the first time a newborn great white shark has been observed in the wild.
“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, and no one has ever seen a newborn shark pup alive.” said Gauna in the news release. “Dead white sharks were found inside dead pregnant mothers. But there is nothing like this.”
An alternative explanation for the shark’s whitish coloration could be that it is caused by an unknown skin disorder, according to the study. But Gauna and Sternes said they believed the creature they observed was a newborn great white, according to the news release.
The study noted that its shape and size are indicative of a newborn baby: thin and rounded fin tips. In addition, other researchers have suggested that this area off California’s central coast is the birthplace of great white sharks.
Gauna and Sternes also noted that mature sharks were seen in the same area on the same day in the study and the day before the images were recorded.
“To me, this was probably an event that lasted hours, maybe a day at most,” Sternes said.
Speculative finding?
Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program on Shark Research at the University of Florida and curator of the Florida Museum of Natural History, said it was possible the sighting was a newborn great white shark, but added that the find was “highly speculative.” ”
“White sharks usually have 8 to 12 pups at a time, so where are the others?” Naylor, who was not involved in the research, said via email.
Nicholas Ray, a researcher at Nottingham Trent University in England who has studied great white shark population dynamics in South Africa, called the sighting documented by Gauna and Sternes “fantastic.”
“This observation is extremely important and marks the beginning of scientists’ understanding of the elusive reproductive cycles of this endangered species. “As a new discovery, it could open the door and reinforce the need for greater conservation in these areas,” Ray, who was not involved in this study, said in an email. said.
The fact that the baby shark was captured so close to shore may be significant because its age means it was likely born in shallow waters. Other shark experts believe great whites are born further out to sea, according to the news release.
“Other researchers have suggested that white sharks spawn in shallow coastal waters in this area but have never been observed,” said Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist at the Massachusetts Department of Marine Fisheries and author of “Chasing Shadows:” My Life Is Chasing the Great White Shark.
“While the presence of a young white shark in this area supports this hypothesis, no actual birth was observed. We cannot rule out that the shark, which is quite active, may have moved too far from the birth area. Regardless, this is a very exciting observation.”
The observations require “further investigation and additional evidence to support or refute,” according to the study.
“Nevertheless, in both cases the use of drones provided other interesting insights into shark science,” the study authors added.
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