![]() The basking shark has long been a commercially important fish as a source of food, shark fin, animal feed, and shark liver oil. Despite their large size and threatening appearance, basking sharks are not aggressive and are harmless to humans. They may be found in either small shoals or alone. īasking sharks have been shown from satellite tracking to overwinter in both continental shelf (less than 200 m or 660 ft) and deeper waters. This species has the smallest weight-for-weight brain size of any shark, reflecting its relatively passive lifestyle. The teeth have a single conical cusp, are curved backwards and are the same on both the upper and lower jaws. The teeth are numerous and very small, and often number 100 per row. The gill rakers, dark and bristle-like, are used to catch plankton as water filters through the mouth and over the gills. ![]() Its snout is conical and the gill slits extend around the top and bottom of its head. It has anatomical adaptations for filter-feeding, such as a greatly enlarged mouth and highly developed gill rakers. A slow-moving filter feeder, its common name derives from its habit of feeding at the surface, appearing to be basking in the warmer water there. The basking shark is a cosmopolitan migratory species, found in all the world's temperate oceans. ![]() In Orkney, it is commonly known as hoe-mother (sometimes contracted to homer), meaning "the mother of the pickled dog-fish". Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sail-fish, and sun-fish. The caudal fin has a strong lateral keel and a crescent shape. It is usually greyish-brown, with mottled skin. Adults typically reach 7.9 m (26 ft) in length. The basking shark ( Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark.
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