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Sleeping Great White Shark Filmed For First Time Ever

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 11:41 PST, Jul 2, 2016

Researchers working off the coast of Mexico have managed to record a heretofore unseen phenomenon, documenting a great white shark as it glides asleep through the inky depths for the first time ever.

The highly unusual footage was shot by a research team working with the Discovery Channel, as the Independent reports, and was caught off the coast of Guadalupe Island, one of the world’s major aggregation sites for great white sharks. It debuted earlier this week as part of the network’s annual Shark Week event, during a special called Jaws of the Deep.

By affixing a tag to the fin of a female white shark nicknamed Emma, the research team, which included Dr. Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, was able to track the animal with a pair of robotic submersibles, each armed with an array of underwater cameras. Though the robotic subs were attacked by great whites multiple times while trailing several of the animals, they nevertheless held true in their mission, delivering to the team footage that has, up until now, eluded science. While there is no lack of dramatic footage of great white sharks preying upon other marine life or inspecting diving cages, there had been no recording of a white shark napping until this latest clip was documented.

The team managed to track Emma during both daylight and nighttime hours, until the sub needed to be retrieved due to heavy seas. Before the mission was aborted, however, they noted that the shark’s behavior began to change, just around dusk. Instead of remaining in deeper waters, which white sharks use to stalk their preferred prey, Emma moved closer to the shoreline of Guadalupe Island, while still remaining just above the seafloor.

As the clock neared 8:30 p.m., the research team noted several other changes in Emma’s behavior. The shark slowed, and her lower jaw began to gape open as she continued to move through the water, heading directly into a current. Moving south along the eastern edge of Guadalupe Island, Emma entered a seemingly catatonic state, gliding silently through the dark water as the team watched.

The way in which white sharks sleep has previously been a major unknown for scientists, as have many of their other habits, though it has long been known that the species must constantly be on the move in order to pass water over their gill slits and breathe. Should a white shark like Emma ever stop swimming altogether, the consequences for the animal would be dire; the shark would sink to the bottom of the ocean, slowly suffocating and eventually dying from a lack of oxygen.

While Emma provided the research team with a completely new angle on white shark behavior, she is hardly the only member of her species to call Guadalupe Island home, and far from the most famous. Last year, biologist Mauricio Hoyos Padilla made headlines when he released footage of a stunningly large female great white, nicknamed Deep Blue, that he recorded during a trip to the island in 2013. As wide as a hippo, the exceptional shark is thought to be 50-years-old, as Heavy notes, and is estimated to be nearly 20-feet-long. The unusual great white shark played a major role in the 2014 edition of Discovery’s Shark Week, during which she was thought to be pregnant, when researchers successfully tagged her.

[Photo by Elias Levy – Own Work via Flickr | Cropped and Resized | CC BY 2.0]

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