The Basking shark is dark grey in colour and can look very intimidating, with its very large mouth.

Behaviour

The basking shark is not an aggressive shark, it spends most of its time near the surface feeding, occassionally making deeper dives.

Males and females live in seperate areas and only come together to mate, they have a very large home range and don't stay in one area for long.

Habitat and how do they adapt ?

It likes to live near the surface, but in warm to cold tempertures, very rarely seen in the tropics, but its sugested that males do travel from one side to the other to mate. They are usually seen near the coast to open oceans.

Where does it live ?

The Basking shark lives either side of the Equator, but not in the tropics.

Diet

The Basking shark is a filter feeder, which means it swims near the surface with its mouth open sucking in its prey and spitting out what it doesnt want. It's main prey is Plankton, small fish and invertabrates.

Basking Shark

Cetorhinus Maximus

Predator or prey ?

It is a predator to many small creatures, but is only prey to other sharks, Killerwhales and humans.

Amelia White



Captions

Technical language

To add video footage of the Basking shark.