5,000 Pound Basking Shark is Dr. Jekyll to Great White's Mr. Hyde

A colossal basking shark came ashore on a Long Island, New York, beach on Tuesday, but frightened no one out of the water. In fact, its belly-up beaching actually drew a crowd of curious spectators.

According to CNN, the big fish measured 26 feet 6 inches in length and weighed in at about 5,000 pounds. The shark died shortly after beaching. Basking sharks are common in Long Island waters this time of year, but dead or dying specimens rarely are seen on or near beaches. There was no word on the cause of the shark's death.

As far as sharks go, basking sharks don't have much of a brand. Unlike their much more aggressive and famous cousins, such as the great white shark and the tiger shark, basking sharks have gained virtually no media exposure or publicity. They neither head butt surfers from their boards, rip off human limbs, nor make suitable subjects for low-budget Hollywood horror flicks.

So, just what is a basking shark, and how does it run against the grain of popular shark stereotypes? Here are some answers.

A mild-mannered shark

The basking shark is the second largest fish in the ocean, behind only its larger cousin the whale shark.

According to a San Francisco State University website, the basking shark is "an extremely large cartilaginous shark" averaging between 23 and 30 feet in length and weighing up to 8580 pounds. It earns its name from its behavior of sluggishly feeding at or near the surface of the ocean, where it appears to be "basking."

Like all sharks, the basking shark is interested in one thing only: eating. However, unlike the aggressive great white shark, or the unpredictable and ill-tempered tiger shark, both of which have no compunction about attacking humans, the basking shark has no taste for Homo sapien. In fact, there is no record of a basking shark ever attacking a human. Maybe that's because a 30-foot behemoth can't be bothered with relatively crumb-size morsels.

The basking shark instead is a docile plankton-and-small-fish grazer. It feeds by swimming with its enormous mouth wide open. Funneling up to 2000 tons of water per hour, the shark will accumulate up to a half ton of food in its stomach. The basking shark's temperament is very much that of a marine Dr. Jekyll, while the great white and tiger sharks roam the seas as Mr. Hyde.

Basking sharks hang out in near-coastal waters in several parts of the world, including the eastern and western US seaboard, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, South Africa and the south of Australia. The species also likes to gather in small groups, segregated by sex, and is thought to be extremely migratory.

As is true of almost all sharks, little is known about how and when basking sharks reproduce. However, while the numbers of basking sharks worldwide are unknown, it is certain is that people have an appetite for various portions of the lumbering fish's anatomy.

Basking shark liver oil, fins, cartilage and meat are all in demand. Although the value of the fish's liver oil has declined, there still are significant quantities traded throughout the world, particularly in northern European counties. In Asia, basking shark fins are valued for shark fin soup. The fish's cartilage is popular as herbal medicine, and in Norway and other eastern and northern European countries basking shark meat serves as food.

Sources

Jesse Solomon, "5,000 pound shark washes ashore on Long Island," CNN.com/us
Cynthia Commerford, "The Biogeography of the Basking Shark," San Francisco State University
"Tiger Shark," National Geographic
"Great White Shark," National Geographic