Monday, April 21, 2014

Big GWS in Asia - Paper!

Geographical extent and size distribution of white shark observations. Color legend for country of observation occurrence applies to entire figure. A) Approximate location of observation or landing for individual white sharks. Circles on land indicate observations that only reported country of landing. Annual average sea surface temperature is indicated by color gradient. B) Percentage of white shark observations by country landed. C) Size of white shark observed by country landed (top two panels) and as a percent of all observations (bottom panel). Note–the Philippines observations did not have an associated animal size. 
Click for detail!

Great stuff!

Finally, somebody is describing those sightings from Asia.
It looks like the NW Pacific harbors its own distinct population of GWS, and it appears that Japan may be an aggregation site for large adults much like Lupe or the Neptunes, whereas geographically widespread sightings of subadults suggest that there may be multiple nurseries.
And, a female from the East China Sea measuring a whopping 6.02m is the largest ever reliably measured GWS anywhere, with an enormous individual from Taiwan reputedly even larger!

But check it out for yourselves.
Thankfully, the paper is open source, and it is brimming with interesting information.

Enjoy!

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