Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias)

[GuateGojira]

(08-27-2020, 08:19 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: I never said that GW's dominate humpbacks, that Megalodon was a prehistoric version (or even a close relative) of the GW, or that GW's are "cooler" than orcas (referring to Guate's comment in the other thread), but I hope that we can agree on this:

Orcas dominate GW's and other sharks, and some great whites have been seen to prey on juvenile humpbacks which are larger than them. Not only did 2 GW's hunt a juvenile in poor condition that measured 23 ft (7.0104 m) in February, 2017, off the coast of South Africa, but also last month, off the coast of the same country, a GW called "Helen" took down a juvenile but much larger (about 3 times) humpback measuring 32–33 ft or 9.7536–10.0584 m), as mentioned by PCTS.

Indeed, the latter case is so spectacular so as to be viral news: https://nypost.com/2020/07/15/shark-name...-its-kind/,  https://www.newsweek.com/great-white-sha...le-1517391, https://ewn.co.za/2020/07/10/great-white...back-whale

A  few remarks on this:

1 - White sharks are not close relatives of the Carcharocles (Otodus) megalodon. In fact, depending of where it is clasiffied, is still out of the line of the white sharks Carcharodon carcharias, check this evolutionary line:

*This image is copyright of its original author

If the "megalodon" was a Carcharocles, then the relation with the white shark is like the relation of a lynx with a lion, and if it was Otodus, the relation will be like the Smilodon with the lion, in both cases are not a close relative at all.

2 - About the predation of white sharks to juveline humback whales, a took a read to the three articles and these are important points, copy past from the articles:

 a. The whale was entangled in a net.
 b. The whale was young and had been left behind by the rest of the group, making it vulnerable.
 c. This whale was so weakened that it gave the shark the upper hand and thus confidence to instigate the attack.
 d. This behavior is very rare and requires a number of aspects to all come together to be possible. A weak whale passing through a great white hot spot, and then a large and confident great white encountering it.
 e. Helen, realizing her opponent was frail and alone, was able to calculate whether she could succeed with a drowning offensive.

After these details, it is clear that the white shark was inteligent enough to detect that the animal was weak, a level of inteligence also found in crocodiles or Komodo dragons, so overall is nothing extreamly exceptional. Also it was strong enough to take advantage and kill the prey, but the prey wa also vulnerable, frail and alone, plus the fact that was juvenil, so this attack ca be compared to the attack of lions and tigers on juvenile elephants, which are big but will not fight back like an adult specimen, plus the fact that those cases are rare. What we see here are exceptional cases and like researcher Ryan Johnson said, these are rare acases and requires a number of aspects to all come together to be possible. Reply