Saturday, June 30, 2018

Five-Meter GWS?

Mako vs GWS - awesome pic by Ozzie Sam. Notice how wide the caudal keel is!   
Source - click for detail

Watch.



Hmmmmm.
For what it is worth, methinks that that Shark does not move with the gravitas of a 5-meter animal but rather, like a much smaller individual; and the very pointy snout and very wide caudal keel appear more indicative of a Shortfin Mako, at least to me.

But who am I to say.
Both species inhabit the Med, with the Mako being far more common, albeit locally threatened like all Sharks there. And do re-read this post about the rather fascinating theory about the Australian origins of the Mediterranean GWS population - paper here!
But my call remains that this is a sprightly Mako of 2-2.5m.

Original FB post here, story here.

PS - Bingo: Michael Domeier here!
PPS - compare to this clip of a Mako @ approx 0:20ff!



PPPS -  and now we got ourselves some experts...

1 comment:

Daniel said...

Hey Mike!
Funny, I thought the same first about the caudal keel, but... who am I... I was willing to belive it - then I read your post and looked up some pictures from above surface... this for example - https://condorexpress.com/mako-shark-steals-show/
Hard to belive now for me.
Cheers
Daniel