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Basking Shark — printable fact sheet
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Basking Shark
Cetorhinus maximus
The basking shark is the second-largest fish in the world and one of the most harmless. It feeds by simply swimming forward with its mouth open, a gape wide enough to swallow a person whole, straining plankton from the water with gill rakers — bristly combs lining the gill arche…
Did you know?
- Despite their massive size, basking sharks feed on some of the ocean's smallest organisms—tiny plankton.
- The second-largest fish alive, and completely harmless — it strains plankton from the water with bristly gill rakers. Its teeth are tiny and effectively useless, leftovers from an ancestor that ate very differently. It has to keep swimming to feed at all, which is why it cruises at the surface looking as if it is sunbathing. It was hunted for centuries for its enormous oil-rich liver.
What I learned
Draw the basking shark
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