Basking shark families go on road trips in search of fine dining

Enlarge / Basking sharks in the aquarium, Loro Parque, Tenerife, Canary Islands, 2007. (credit: Heritage Images | Getty Images)

Picture the scene. Swimming off Scotland's west coast during a summer holiday you notice a large dark shark nearly 10 metres long headed towards you. A prominent triangular dorsal fin cuts the surface, the powerful rhythmically beating tail driving it silently through the cloudy green depths. You're transfixed by a cavernous mouth large enough to swallow a seal.

Musing this may be your last swim, it might be surprising to learn this leviathan of the deep is a harmless yet endangered gentle giant. It has little interest in humans, focusing on some unseen bounty of the warmer summer waters: zooplankton, the tiny creatures found near the surface of the ocean.

This is the basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus), once common off western Europe, feeding on the annual plankton bonanza of the European shelf.

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