Why Great White Sharks Hang Out in Warm Whirlpools

[Judi Lynn]

New research on famous white sharks Mary Lee and Lydia shows the giant fish spend a surprising amount of time in warm oceanic eddies.
BY DOUGLAS MAIN

PUBLISHED JUNE 19, 2018

The lives of great white sharks, despite their notoriety, remain murky.

Foremost among the many questions that remain: Where do they spend most of their time, and what guides their enigmatic movements? Why do adults often head to the open ocean, far from the prey-rich coasts where they spend much of their youth?

New research helps shed light on both questions. In a study published recently in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists tracked two female great whites—popularly known as Mary Lee and Lydia—using advanced satellite tags in the western Atlantic. The team found that when the animals head to the open ocean, they spend much of their time diving within warm circular currents, known as anticyclonic eddies. Overall, the animals could be found within these whirlpool-like gyres more than three-fourths of the time.

The sharks also spent up to 40 percent of their days at 600 feet or below, says study co-author Camrin Braun, a doctoral student with MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. (Read more about why great white sharks are still a mystery to us.)

More:
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/06/great-white-sharks-whirlpools-ocean-animals/?beta=true