Welcome back to the final week of this Shark-Tastic Underwater Pageant. Last week we met Great Hammerhead and learned about all of her amazing skills and saw her unique beauty. This week we will be squeezing in one more contestant before the Ultimate Grand Supreme winner is announced. This week Basking Shark will be coming center stage.
Basking shark will first be rated on her specialized experience. She has a delicate bulbous snout and her mouth is full of tiny hooked teeth. Her neck is surrounded in a large gill slit and that almost seems to connect on either end. Basking shark often travels with her neck extended and mouth open to help her filter feed. This frightens many of her ocean visitors and she was the main character for a couple oceanic horror sea monster stories. She is the second largest shark, coming second only to Whale Shark. She is only 29 feet but some of her closest relatives have been genetically blessed enough to reach 40 feet in length. She is an avid advocate for body positivity weighing in anywhere between 6,000 and 13,000 pounds- when faced with negativity regarding her weight she always responds with that there is “just more to love” and she has no intention to change her appearance. And while she has a beautiful body shape her skin is a different story. Her skin is a luscious slate gray but is covered in mottled patches. She has been using lotion daily and is expecting her skin to clear up soon. This earns her a 7.1/10 in Appearance.
Basking shark’s social status varies among different peoples. In the past she
was often labeled as a “sea monster” and was actually the star of many horror stories involving the ocean. These fears come from seeing Basking Shark and her family swim in single file (nose to fin) line. Basking Shark’s carcass also looks scary because of its disproportions- the head is very small in comparison to the length of the body. This causes humans to deem it being a shark impossible and claim it is some other foreign creator. While she originally thought this would bring her privacy she is now heavily sought out for her fins and oil. The United States ordered protection of Basking Shark and her family in 1997 and convinced the UK to join in 2000. Because of these attacks are from Chinese fisheries Basking Shark’s relatives outside of the US are considered endangered. Basking Shark earns a 5.6/10 in Social Interactions.
Basking Shark’s final category is Special Skills. She is one of the very few sharks that feeds on plankton and she relies on her olfactory bulb to detect her meals Unlike the other plankton consuming sharks, Basking Shark does not actively seek food. She opens her wide mouth (near meter in length) and swims allowing water to filter in and out of her mouth by using her gills. The spines of the gills separate the plankton and water allowing Basking Shark to eat. Being a passive eater, she is able to filter 1,500-2,000 cubic meters of water per hour. The water she filters through contains zooplankton, invertebrate larvae, fish eggs, and small crustaceans. Even though she is one of the largest animals in the world this does not stop her from living her dreams. She can occasionally be seen leaping out of the water to show the world how beautiful she is, this also helps with parasite removal. Not only that but she is also one of the most social sharks, her and her friends form groups of more or less than 100 members (usually different groups for different genders). Another interesting trait is that she is ovoviviparous, meaning that sexual maturity is reached at a particular size, not age. Females are mature at 4-5 meters and males are mature 1.5 to 2.8 meters. All of these specialized traits earn beautiful Basking Shark a score of 9.2/10 in Special Skills.
Basking shark was a lovely contestant on the Shark-Tastic Pageant this week. We love to see her body positivity representing all types of sharks. It was also an honor to have such a popular character from sea monster stories participating in the pageant. Her overall score is a 7.3/10. Well done Basking Shark!