Are two nice white sharks which have taken a really related path north this 12 months brothers or half brothers?
That’s what shark researchers are attempting to determine, after juvenile male white sharks Simon and Jekyll had been each tagged off the coast of Georgia and have moved shut to 1 one other up the Atlantic coast for greater than 4,000 miles.
Historically, white sharks have been generally known as solitary animals migrating on their very own, however Simon and Jekyll are touring to the identical place on the similar time.
“They’ve taken an unusually synchronous path north,” OCEARCH Chief Scientist Bob Hueter advised the Herald.
“It’s the first time we’ve seen something like this, and it’s very interesting, it’s mysterious and it’s exciting,” he added.
When OCEARCH researchers tagged 9-footer Simon and 8-footer Jekyll off the Georgia coast in December, the scientists took plenty of samples — together with blood, tissue and muscle samples.
The researchers have requested a geneticist to look at the samples, and see in the event that they’re siblings transferring alongside the identical path.
“We’re excited to find out if there’s a family relationship between them,” Hueter mentioned.
He famous that Simon and Jekyll will not be swimming side-by-side, fin-to-fin. But the sharks have been touring on a really, very related path, he emphasised.
The newest pings for the good white sharks have proven them method up north, deep within the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canadian waters.
While Cape Cod is a hotspot for white shark exercise in the summertime and fall, Atlantic Canada can also be a well-liked space for the apex predators.
“More than half of our tagged sharks bypass Cape Cod and go to Atlantic Canada now,” Hueter mentioned. “It’s a core area for them in the summertime, and it’s just as important as Cape Cod now.”
The outcomes of the genetic testing are doubtlessly groundbreaking as a result of shark researchers have been at midnight about white sharks’ social and household buildings.
“They have appeared to be solitary animals,” Hueter mentioned. “They come together to aggregation sites to feed, like along Cape Cod, but we haven’t known anything about the relationships between and among white sharks before.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”