The largest great white shark this group has ever tagged appeared near Atlantic City
Contender the shark is nearly 14 feet long. A research group OCEARCH said his tag pinged near the New Jersey coast this week.
Polar plungers, beware!
A 14-foot-long great white shark neared the Atlantic City shores Tuesday, according to the research group OCEARCH. Nicknamed “Contender,” he is the largest male great white shark that the group has tagged and tracked in the Atlantic Ocean.
OCEARCH tagged and released Contender in January near the Florida-Georgia border. Since then, the shark has traveled over 4,300 miles along the North American coastline. Over the summer, he swam up to near Newfoundland, Canada, before heading back south beginning in October. At 9:13 p.m. on Tuesday, Contender’s tracker pinged dozens of miles off Atlantic City.
OCEARCH tags and releases many great white sharks and other marine species around the world for research and advocacy purposes. The tag on Contender is designed to last for five years, and the group is continuously tracking his movements.
For your next trivia night, remember: Great white sharks are named for their white underbellies, despite their mostly gray skin. They can swim as fast as 35 mph, and are partially warm-blooded (endothermic), which allows them to maintain a body temperature slightly above the water they swim in.
And though Contender would be longer than A’ja Wilson standing on Bam Adebayo’s head would be tall, he’s a fairly average-sized great white. At 13.8 feet, he is large for a male, which usually range from 11 to 13 feet, but female great whites are typically 15 to 16 feet. The size of the largest great white shark ever recorded is disputed, but several historic sharks have been measured near 20 feet long.
But give Contender some time, and he may get to be that genre of gargantuan. It’s unclear how old Contender is, but OCEARCH has categorized him as a mature adult, meaning he is at least 26 years old. Great white sharks can live into their 70s, and like other fish, continue to grow for their entire lifetimes. When he was tagged in January, Contender weighed about 1,653 pounds.