Great white has got a great deal greater

12 June 2015 - 02:17 By Shaun Smillie

She is bigger than your average powerboat, weighs more than the typical female rhinoceros and is one of the biggest great white sharks ever caught on film. Footage has been released of a great white shark that marine experts believe could be 6.5m long.The shark, which has been given the name Deep Blue, has been captured on film towering over divers who watch from a roofless cage.One brave diver even reaches out and touches the shark's fin as she swims past.Deep Blue was first featured on a documentary on Discovery Channel, filmed when researchers tagged the behemoth.According to media reports on GrindTV, one of the researchers, Mauricio Hoyos Padilla, discovered footage of the operation, near Mexico's Guadalupe Island, on his computer last week.The footage has gone viral.The reason for her impressive girth, researchers believe, is that she is expecting babies.Jimi Partington, a guide and shark expert who spends half of the year in the Cape and the rest in Guadalupe, said Deep Blue is one of many extra-large sharks found in that region."I think if you [took] a measuring tape to her, she would be pushing 7m, and weigh close to 2t," he said. Partington has not seen Deep Blue but a few of his friends have.Compared to the likes of Deep Blue, South Africa's great whites are almost puny, said Partington.The biggest great white he has seen was in False Bay and was about 5.5m long."And those only come around every couple of years," he said.It is believed Guadalupe Island has bigger sharks because large females gather there to mate and feed on the elephant seals in the area, which weigh a ton or more .Partington said he has been told that Deep Blue has not been spotted since 2013.He said Deep Blue had probably gone on a two-year migration, during which she will give birth to live baby sharks about 1.5m long."This means we will probably see the girl back in Guadalupe this year," Partington said...

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