The ocean’s apex predators may be gossipers, as great white sharks apparently hang out with peers to learn where their next meal is located.
That’s according to shark researchers who discovered that some white sharks socialize for more than an hour at a time. The scientists believe the predators are mingling to share intel about the location of desired prey.
“The important question we still have to answer is what’s the reason for being social for these sharks?” said Florida International University marine scientist Yannis Papastamatiou, who researched the great white sharks around Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.
“We still don’t know, but it’s likely they may stay in proximity of other individuals in case those individuals are successful in killing large prey,” he added. “They aren’t working together but being social could be a way to share information.”
Guadalupe Island is brimming with tuna and seals, making it a hot spot for white sharks. Papastamatiou and a team of researchers wanted to uncover some of the mysteries of the white sharks that gather seasonally around the island.
With an innovative combination of tracking tools, they found sharks tend to stick together when patrolling. Some were together for more than an hour.
“Most associations were short, but there were sharks where we found considerably longer associations, much more likely to be social associations,” said Papastamatiou, lead author of the study. “Seventy minutes is a long time to be swimming around with another white shark.”
The researchers for the study combined different commercially available technology into a “super social tag” that collected data for up to five days before popping off the shark’s dorsal fin and floating to the surface.
It was equipped with a video camera and an array of sensors tracking acceleration, depth, direction and how rapidly the shark turned while swimming. The tag also had special receivers that could detect other tagged sharks nearby.
