Great White Shark

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Yesterday afternoon we had a very special sighting. It was at the very end of our whale watch, when we had just finished getting a good look at a mother and calf pair of Humpback whales and we were going to go and take a quick look at a couple of Fin whales in the area before going home. I (I was captain on this trip) throttled the boat up to go see the Fin whales when my naturalist said “Hey what;s that? Is that a shark?”. I looked to the starboard (right) side of the boat and sure enough there was the fin of a shark heading towards us. Seeing a shark on a whale watch is not unusual as there are many Basking sharks on Stellwagen Bank, as well as numerous Blue sharks and a scattering of other, smaller species.

A shark of any kind is always a great addition to the trip so I put the engines in reverse and hoped that the shark would stay at the surface as it approached us so we could all get a good look. I immediately I knew it wasn’t a basking shark, and the size, shape, and color were all wrong for a Blue shark. As it got closer I could see the shape of the fish very well. It was fairly large (between 10-12 feet based on size comparison with Atlantic White-sided Dolphin), dark grayish-brown and had a lot of scarring on the head (including one open wound on the top right side of the head). The shark approached the boat slowly to within a few feet of the starboard side, then turned and swam up the starboard side towards the bow.

Eye of the shark (close-up)

At first I thought it may be a Short-finned Mako (another very rare shark in these waters) but when it turned to go up the side of the boat all I can say is everything about it said “Great white”. With polarized sunglasses the view of the shark was incredible. I had my camera onboard, and my short lens even had a polarizer (a filter used to cut surface glare on the water) but I knew that if I went in the back of the wheel house to grab it the shark would probably be long gone by the time I was able to do so. So instead I shouted to the intern and naturalist to take as many pictures as they could, and many passengers onboard did the same. Many of the pictures were quite good, but without a polarizer there is much surface glare in most of the images. On the way back to Gloucester many generous passengers allowed me to upload their photos so I could take them home, photoshop the images to bring out as much detail as I could, and hopefully be able to positively ID the shark. Thank you to all who contributed to this effort!

NOTE: The color in many of these photos is much redder than in actual life. This is a byproduct of tying to bring out details in the anatomy of the shark. The actual color was what you see in the photo at the top of this page.

Close examination of the photos, along with the behavior and size of the shark leave no doubt as to it’s ID. I will point out just a few of the defining characteristics:

Size. Average Short-finned Makos are between 5-7 feet, with the largest animals rarely exceeding 9 feet. This is close to the size of the shark we saw, but still a little smaller than the fish we saw.

Color. This shark was brownish-gray. Makos are more of a steely-blue, although this field mark is variable. Blue sharks are MUCH bluer than this shark was (and Blues are much smaller, thinner, and have much longer pectoral fins.)

Shape. This shark was MUCH bulkier than a Blue shark, and more so than a Mako (although I am not familiar with that species other than books, field guides, internet, etc). In particular the “tail stock” or “caudal peduncle” was quite thick... a characteristic of the White shark but not that of a Mako.

Behavior. The slow, deliberate swimming style of this shark was consistent with the White shark and not he direct, fast swimming style so often described in the Mako.

But those characteristics are all somewhat subjective, the “real” evidence is in the pictures.

Origin of the first dorsal fin. Compare the drawing to the right. On the White shark the beginning of the dorsal fin (where the fin meets the back of the shark on the “anterior” or “front” side) is just about equal to where the back of the pectoral fin (side fin) meets the body of the shark. Draw a line straight down from the front of the dorsal fin and you will see what I mean. Now do the same with the Basking shark. Notice how the front of the dorsal fin (again on the “anterior” side) meets the back of the shark well behind where the back (or “posterior”) part of the pectoral fin meets the body of the animal. Now compare these drawing to the picture below:

All subjectivity aside, the dorsal fin of this shark is much too far forward to be a Basking.

6. Dorsal fin shape and color. The shape of a Basking shark’s dorsal fin is variable, but almost always quite rounded. This shark had a very pointed fin. See photos below:

In the top photo, also notice the slight serration on the posterior edge of the dorsal fin. This trait is common in White sharks, but almost never seen in Basking or Makos.

Porbeagles (another type of shark that is found in our waters are much smaller than the shark seen yesterday, and very much stockier. They have a rounded dorsal fin, and, most importantly, they have a white patch at the base of the dorsal fin on the posterior side. This feature was not seen in the shark we sighted yesterday, nor does it show in any of the photos I have. There is no credible case that I can see to argue this shark is a Porbeagle, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

7. White on the underside. This feature is hard to see in the photos, but careful examination does show that the white underbelly (clearly visible when the shark was alongside the boat by the way) is not clearly demarcated in a long, smooth arc but rather it is broken or jagged in appearance. The white also does not extend over the pelvic fins (the set of fins posterior to the pectoral fins) as it does in the Short-finned Mako. Instead the dark pigmentation of the shark extend down to the pelvic fins and the white actually wraps up behind the pelvic fins. Another large area of white extending up onto the side of the sharks body can be seen just where the tail meets the “tail stock” or “caudal peduncle”. Both of these characteristics are consistent with White shark and not Mako. Again, compare the illustrations and photos below.

Short-finned Mako (up to 10 feet long)

Great White (up to 20 feet long)

Blue (up to 12 feet long)

Basking (up to 40 feet long)

Three photos taken yesterday (again, the red color seen in these photos is NOT the actual color of the shark) :

Size of the pelvic fins. The “pelvic fins” are the set of fins just posterior (towards the tail) from the large pectoral fins. Note in the illustrations above how large the pelvic fins are in the Basking shark (this feature can also be seen well in the photo below). All of the other three large sharks that can be seen in the southern Gulf of Maine (Mako, White, and Blue) have proportionately much smaller pelvic fins. The pelvic fin that can be seen in the photo below is very small and thus NOT consistent with Basking shark.

Photo of shark seen yesterday (above) and Basking shark for comparison (below... photo from NEWENGLANDSHARKS.COM)

Gill slits. Another feature not readily apparent (but still visible) in some of the photographs taken yesterday are the gill slits. The gill slits of the Basking shark extend far up onto the top of the animal’s head (see above photo), while the gills of all the other sharks only extend, at most, 2/3rds of the way up the side of the animal’s head. This feature is visible in some photos of the shark seen yesterday and was easily seen when the shark was alongside the boat. This character alone rules out Basking shark, but the lack of mottled coloration, more pointed snout, pointed dorsal fin, overall shape and manner of swimming, and far forward placement of the dorsal fin also rule out basking. So lets move on to the other species.

Pectoral fins to thick and short for Blue shark. A quick comparison of the pectoral fin shape of a Blue shark with that of the shark seen yesterday immediately rules out Blue shark as a possibility. The large size, gray-brown coloration, and thick body also weigh in against Blue. Additionally, while the Mako does not have fins that are quite as long or thin as the Blue, the pectoral fins of the shark seen yesterday are still too thick and proportionately too short for the average Mako. Again. scroll up and see the illustrations and photos above.

Circumstantial evidence. Those of us who have spent a lot of time on the water recently have all noticed how abundant Bluefin Tuna are right now. While we commonly see Tuna leaping from the water during the summer months, over the past few weeks we have seen unusually high numbers of Bluefin tuna (most of the small fish in the 2-3 foot range) feeding actively at the surface. This abundance of Tuna (a common prey item for the White shark) combined with the hot weather and southerly winds that have raised the water temperature to 71 degrees, have created just the right conditions for White sharks to wander a little further north than usual. Indeed a White shark was tagged on Stellwagen Bank just a few miles from where we sighted this shark yesterday, and other White sharks have been reported from various places off the Massachusetts coast over the past few weeks.

The Eye. The eye of this shark is large and all dark. Not ringed in silver as in a Blue, not small and hidden amongst the dark pigmentation of the animal as in a Basking.

FOR SOME GREAT PHOTOS AND A WEALTH OF INFORMATION ON THE SHARK SPECIES THAT CAN BE SEEN IN NEW ENGLAND WATERS, PLEASE VISIT NEWENGLANDSHARKS.COM. YOU WILL LEARN A LOT!

So that’s my case for this being a Great White shark. The “best” evidence in my mind is still what I saw with my eyes. Pictures somehow never capture all the detail of an animal (whether it be a shark, whale, or dolphin) swimming beneath the surface. A polarizer would have helped, but I believe that the photos I have show enough detail to not only rule out other species based upon clearly definable field marks, but also show no field marks inconsistent with that of a Great White. Any comments you may have feel free to share them with me by emailing me at sjfrontierro@yahoo.com. Thanks!

NOTE: To those who have probably been waiting for me to post these pictures and give my “official” opinion on the ID of this shark, I apologize for the delay. I wanted to be 100% sure of the identification so I emailed these (and many of the other) photos we took yesterday to a friend of mine at UMass who is a fisheries biologist so as to get a “professional” opinion. I felt it would be prudent to wait until got a response back before going online and claiming to have seen such a rare animal. I am glad to say that he concurs with the ID we made on the boat yesterday... it IS a white shark!

GREAT WHITE SHARK JULY 7, 2010

White shark dorsal fin

Basking shark dorsal fin

Great White Shark : If you look close you will notice the eye of the shark in the far left part of this picture! Note that the tail is cut off in this photo.

~ a site by S. Jay Frontierro with photographs by Oktay Kaya

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NOTE : In the dorsal fin photos of the White shark we saw yesterday you might notice that in the top photo the fin looks very red, while in the bottom photo it looks gray. Again, the red color is a byproduct of my trying to bring out details of the shark beneath the water. The bottom photo (where the fin looks gray) is un-edited, thus the gray color you see is the actual color of the shark.