Basking shark  (Cetorhinus maximus)

Range

The basking shark is found throughout the world mainly in cool and temperate waters (7), although some sharks have recently been tagged, and found in tropical waters (10), although it was probably never very abundant (1). There has been some suggestion that the geographically isolated northern and southern hemisphere populations represent distinct species but this remains unclear (6).

Habitat

These sharks are found at the surface of coastal waters during the summer to feed on seasonally abundant copepods which bloom in frontal areas during spring and summer, but it is thought they migrate further offshore or to deeper waters during winter (11).

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