Enormous Shark’s Secret Hideout Finally Discovered

After half a century of searching, scientists have finally discovered what happens to the world’s second largest shark every winter: It has a Caribbean hideout.

Basking sharks, which can grow up to 33 feet long and weigh more than a Hummer H1, spend the late spring, summer and early fall in the temperate regions of the world’s oceans. But then they pull their great disappearing act, eluding scientists throughout the winter months.

Scientists tagged the giant fish off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and tracked them by satellite, piecing together their mysterious winter wanderings. He discovered the beasts were absconding to the depths of the Caribbean, some voyaging as far as the Brazilian coast, though the attraction of these destinations poses yet another mystery.

The basking shark about three miles per hour with its four-foot-wide mouth gaping open, filtering through almost 500,000 gallons of water every hour for its plankton sustenance.

The sharks were found to travel well-outside their known range, spending months in the warm waters of the Caribbean and even deep into the southern hemisphere. They also periodically dove to more than 3,000 feet, and often stayed at those depths for months at a time. One shark remained at a depth of nearly 600 feet for upward of five months.

No one has ever seen a baby basking shark, no one’s found a pregnant shark, knows when they reproduce or what their gestation period is.

Original article here.