INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Deep Blue Resurfaces, And You Will Never See A Bigger Great White Shark

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 10:05 PST, Aug 13, 2015

New footage has emerged online of Deep Blue, one of the world’s largest great white sharks, and researchers believe that the 20-foot-long predator likely may have been pregnant when it was filmed several years ago.

Earlier this year, Deep Blue made waves online when video taken by researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla was released, revealing the massive white shark in her native environment off the Mexican coastline. On Monday of this week, Padilla posted another clip on his Facebook page, taken during the same expedition in 2013, according to ABC News.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10153621649200955&permPage=1

Titled “Deep Blue (The biggest shark ever filmed) second part,” the clip depicts the massive white shark as it circles a cage containing divers. One researcher ventures outside of the enclosure as the shark, thought to be 50-years-old, swims alongside it.

One of the biggest great white sharks ever documented, Deep Blue reportedly displayed the girth of a small elephant when she was recorded several years ago. As the Huffington Post notes, researchers believe this could be the result of a pregnancy. The waters off Guadalupe Island where Deep Blue was filmed are known as a hotspot for the species, as the Inquisitr previously reported, and could be tied to a breeding or pupping ground.

Despite Deep Blue’s massive size, researchers assert that smaller white sharks are more likely to provide them with previously unknown data, potentially leading them to the species’ reproductive hideouts, as George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, noted.

“Actually, very small [great] whites may be the holy grail as we know very little about their pupping and nursery grounds. That said, tagged large whites make the longest journeys and get the biggest media attention.”

Ever since Padilla posted the video of Deep Blue online on August 10, it has been viewed by over 3.7 million people. The researcher noted that the footage of the shark fills him with hope that conservation efforts are working, as the massive great white has been able to avoid being killed for half a century. Padilla also noted that researchers have observed several other pregnant female white sharks at Guadalupe over the last year, though none quite as large as Deep Blue.

[Image: Facebook/ Mauricio Hoyos Padilla via Twitter]

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