Is this a newborn great white shark in California? Great if true. | Top Vip News

Seeing a great white shark just 300 meters from the beach is usually quite scary. On rare occasions, these apex predators, which can reach 20 feet long and weigh two tons, bite people.

But that wasn’t the case last summer, when a white shark was spotted near Santa Barbara, California, because the shark was a baby. Approximately five feet long, the marine animal was possibly only a few hours old.

This observation is causing a stir among marine biologists. That is because, in a newly published article, a researcher and filmmaker who caught the animal on camera suggests that this shark is not only young but also a newborn. That would make it the first newborn white shark ever observed in history.

In a video captured by nature filmmaker Carlos Gauna, you can see what the authors describe as a sign of childhood: the young shark is spewing a milky white substance that could be remains of “uterine milk” that mother sharks produce while they gestate their babies, according Phillip Sternes, a doctoral researcher at UC Riverside and author of the paper. (Sternes was with Gauna when the filmmaker’s drone spotted the shark.)

The duo presented other evidence that the shark is a newborn: Not only did the animal look like a baby, with rounded features, but it was also in an area where scientists believe white sharks are pups. (Yes, delightfully, baby sharks are called pups.) Additionally, Gauna observed great white sharks that he said She appeared pregnant in this very place in the days prior to her observation.

Not everyone is convinced that the shark is a newborn.

“There is absolutely no doubt that this is a very young white shark,” Gavin Naylor, a shark researcher at the University of Florida, told Vox by email. As to whether it is a newborn, he added: “It seems more likely (to me) that this young animal was a couple of weeks old and strayed into shallow water.”

There are a few details here that make for a compelling answer: According to Naylor, the few pregnant white sharks that scientists have dissected don’t appear to have the kind of white fluid that came out of the baby shark. White sharks also typically give birth to a litter of eight to 12 pups, not just one, so expect other newborn babies to be swimming nearby.

In the article, Sternes and Gauna acknowledge that the white substance shedding from the shark could be caused by some unknown skin disorder, and not an indication that it is a newborn.

Courtesy of Carlos Gauna

But what is clear from the observation (and the reaction to it) is that our understanding of even the world’s most charismatic species is still full of gaps. “Despite the high level of interest, some important gaps remain in the life history of the white shark,” Sternes and Gauna wrote in their paper. (One reason: it is really difficult to keep white sharks in captivity.)

And it’s not just white sharks that are mysterious, Naylor said. Whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, can give birth to up to 300 babies at a time and scientists don’t know where it happens, he said.

“We know much less than people assume about most life forms on Earth,” Naylor said. “Determining exactly where different shark species give birth is one of hundreds of millions of things we still don’t know.”

Without a doubt, these gaps in our understanding are humbling: parts of the world are still unknown, there are still frontiers to explore. However, they also represent a weakness in our efforts to safeguard life on Earth. The lack of scientific knowledge about the species makes it difficult to implement the right type of conservation. Simply put, it’s challenging to protect sharks if you don’t have insight into something as fundamental as where they begin their lives.

The global population of white sharks appears to be declining, at least in some regions, according the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The IUCN, an authority on endangered species, classifies the species as “vulnerable.” However, they are not on the federal list of endangered species in the United States. And in California, the data suggests that the white shark population may be increasing, making it something of a stronghold for the species.

“If this is indeed a newborn individual, this demonstrates the critical importance of this area of ​​southern California to eastern Pacific white sharks,” Sternes and Gauna wrote in the paper. While California white sharks are protected by federal regulations, they are still caught accidentally, they said, which can cause harm and potentially even death.

“More research is needed to confirm that these waters are in fact a large white breeding ground,” Sternes saying in a sentence. “But if so, we would want lawmakers to step in and protect these waters to help white sharks continue to thrive.”