Ever seen a newborn white shark?
Yeah, doubt it, as until today nobody had managed to see, let alone record, one. The closest thing we had ever got was dead white shark babies inside their deceased pregnant mother.
So, without further ado I present you the very first photo of a live white shark baby:
Newborn great white, filmed off the California coast near Santa Barbara, Carlos Gauna/The Malibu Artist
The baby shark was sighted by wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and UC Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes on July 9, 2023 while scanning waters near Santa Barbara with a drone camera. At some point, they spotted a white shark pup still shedding its embryonic layer!
“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming. I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer. Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive” Sternes said.
Their observation is documented in a paper in the Environmental Biology of Fishes journal, which however gives an alternative explanation to what they might have witnessed. It might instead be a shark with some short of rare skin disease. Something that Gauna heavily disagrees with
“If that is what we saw, then that too is monumental because no such condition has ever been reported for these sharks”
So was it a newborn white shark. Or some poor fucked up shark ? Chances are we will never know till someone else makes a similar and better recorded observation.
However, I must admit that after reading the paper I was impressed that we still know so little about basic stuff (like the process of giving birth) of the life cycle of one of the biggest sea predators!
A cool story despite the lurking mystery.
Here's a link to the press release regarding the observation if you want a basic read on the story, and here's a link to the actual paper if you'd prefer a heavier read!