A great white shark nicknamed Deep Blue is considered by many to be the largest of its species ever recorded. But a prominent researcher has cast doubt on that notion.
Michael Domeier, in a Tuesday Instagram post, featured a beautiful image of Deep Blue, captured by Kimberly Jeffries last January in Hawaiian waters off Oahu, along with two decades-old photographs showing equally massive white shark carcasses on beaches in Cuba and Taiwan. (See embedded post.)
The old photos were samples of other “ginormous” white sharks known to have existed. But Domeier, president and executive director of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, also used reason to support his “not so fast” assessment.
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“First, Deep Blue has never been scientifically measured or weighed,” Domeier wrote. “That would require being physically laid out next to a tape measure or photographed while being painted with a precisely calibrated paired laser system. That’s never happened.”
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The scientist, who has studied great white sharks extensively at Mexico’s Guadalupe Island and off California, added: “I have personally seen two massive sharks that could definitely exceed Deep Blue in size, one at the Farallones [west of San Francisco] and one near Pt. Conception, [Ca.].”
Domeier’s team first documented Deep Blue in 1999 “and she was already big back then,” he continued. “So she’s an old, beautiful shark, but no one can unequivocally claim she is biggest Great White in the sea.”
Deep Blue, estimated to measure about 21 feet, became famous after being featured by Discovery in 2014 (with footage captured in 2013). The photo atop this post is a screen shot from footage captured at Guadalupe Island, shared to Facebook by Mexican researcher Mauricio Hoyos Padilla in 2015.
Domeier on Wednesday told For The Win Outdoors: “As a mature female, Deep Blue likely returns to Guadalupe Island every two years during the mating season, but she is rarely sighted.”
The massive shark generated headlines in January 2019 when she was spotted off Oahu, feeding on a sperm whale carcass.