Latent power of basking sharks revealed by exceptional breaching events.

ABSTRACT: The fast swimming and associated breaching behaviour of endothermic mackerel sharks is well suited to the capture of agile prey. In contrast, the observed but rarely documented breaching capability of basking sharks is incongruous to their famously languid lifestyle as filter-feeding planktivores. Indeed, by analysing video footage and an animal-instrumented data logger, we found that basking sharks exhibit the same vertical velocity (approx. 5 m s^-1) during breach events as the famously powerful predatory great white shark. We estimate that an 8-m, 2700-kg basking shark, recorded breaching at 5 m s^-1 and accelerating at 0.4 m s^-2, expended mechanical energy at a rate of 5.5 W kg^-1; a mass-specific energetic cost comparable to that of the great w

SUBMITTER: Johnston EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6170759 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature