As of: March 14, 2024, 3:23 p.m
By: Johannes Welte
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A basking shark has appeared off the coast near Trieste, Italy.
(Archive photo) © Wild Wonders of Europe / Sá via www.imago-images.de
Fishermen near Trieste in the Italian Adriatic had a rare encounter: They filmed a basking shark - the second largest fish in the world.
Trieste - The Adriatic is considered the bathtub of the Germans and Austrians.
In Italy's northeasternmost tip lie the seaside resorts of Grado, Lignano and Caorle, known for their shallow sandy beaches.
In the very east of the bay, the coast becomes rocky again just before the Slovenian border near Trieste.
It was precisely in these waters that a huge fish appeared on the surface of the water.
As the portal
triesteprima.it
reports, an eight-meter-long basking shark was spotted at the weekend.
In a short film you can see how the two fin tips stick out of the water and slowly cross the surface between Santa Croce and Marina di Aurisina near the famous fairytale castle Miramare.
The video went viral among fishermen in the area.
Experts from the Miramare Marine Reserve and the National Oceanographic and Geophysical Institute OGS unequivocally identified the animal based on its fins.
Giant fish swims in the Adriatic Sea off Italy: The colossus is much larger than a great white shark
With a body length of up to ten meters and a weight of up to around four tons , the basking shark (
Cetorhinus maximus
) is the second largest known fish on earth after the slightly larger whale shark.
The great white shark is much smaller with a maximum length of six meters.
Like the whale shark and the basking shark, which is common in tropical waters, the basking shark feeds on plankton.
In contrast to the whale shark, which sucks in the water and filters it through its gill traps, the basking shark swims just below the surface of the water with its mouth open and allows the water to flow through its gills.
This allows it to filter about 1,800 tons of water per hour for food.
Basking sharks prefer cold to moderately warm waters in which they follow the plankton supply.
Small crustaceans and other planktonic organisms get caught in the mucus-covered fish trap teeth and are washed down the throat when the mouth is closed.
Basking shark off Italy: “Wonderful news for the Gulf of Trieste”
The basking shark can filter around 1,800 tons of water per hour in this way; an adult animal needs up to 500 liters of zooplankton as food every day.
According to the WWF, basking sharks are more common in the western part of the Mediterranean.
However, their main distribution area is the northeastern Atlantic from North Africa through the waters of Great Britain to Iceland.
In the Southern Hemisphere they are found in southern Australia, southern South America and the tip of South Africa.
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Basking sharks fish through the sea with their mouths wide open.
© Greg SkomalNOAA Fisheries Service/Wikipedia
Staff at the Miramare Marine Reserve reacted enthusiastically to the rare visit: “The sighting is wonderful news for the Gulf of Trieste and its biodiversity and offers signs of hope for species that are increasingly endangered throughout the Mediterranean,” they posted on Facebook.
“This is a rare observation for the Gulf: the last one was in 2015.” People who travel in and around the sea should not be afraid, as the giant fish only eats very small animals.
“What we should be concerned about is that its conservation, like that of many other hair breeds and species, is considered endangered.”
Recently, underwater archaeologists discovered a Roman port in the Slovenian neighborhood.
A few kilometers away, a Croatian community is fighting against the concrete covering of public beaches.
Last year, a pod of sperm whales in the Croatian Adriatic enchanted a group of fishermen.