Fin-credible! Moment thresher shark is filmed leaping from the waves during sea life-spotting trip around UK coast
- Group out on a wildlife boat trip witnessed the thresher shark breaching waves
- Shark was spotted swimming off the coast of Pembrokeshire on Monday evening
- Experts running the trip say it’s only the third time in 16 years they have seen one
An incredible video taken off the British coast has captured a thresher shark breaching in and out of the waves.
A Bay To Remember, which provides Dolphin and Wildlife Watching Boat Trips was near Pen-Yr-Afr, Pembrokeshire when the thresher put on a spectacular display on Monday.
A spokesperson from A Bay To Remember said: ‘This is only our third time seeing one in 16 years of running, and the first to be caught on camera.’
Thresher sharks are one of the few shark species known to jump fully out of the water, using their elongated tail to propel them above the waves.
This comes only days after what is believed to be a basking shark was seen swimming by Tenby North beach.
The sharks, which are regarded as a threatened species, are found in all the world’s temperate oceans, including the coastal waters of the UK in summer.
Pictured: This is the incredible moment a thresher shark breaching in and out of the waves
More frequent sightings are reported around southwest England, Wales and the west coast of Scotland.
Their hotspots are the Isle of Skye and the Isle of Mull in the Scottish Hebrides, and the Isle of Man, Devon and Cornwall.
Like the basking shark, threshers are safe and no danger to humans.
There has only been one known attack from a thresher shark to a human, which was a provoked attack.
The species is known to be a migratory shark, which passes through UK waters in the summer months.
Threshers are known to grow up to 6m and weigh up to 340kg.
The thresher shark (top) was spotted by a sea-life spotting group off the cost of Pen-Yr-Afr, just 10 days after a basking shark was spotted by swimmers off the coast of Tenby (bottom)
This footage shows the sea giant slowly drifting in ‘waist deep’ water off the coast of Tenby
A spokesperson from The Wildlife Trusts said: ‘The thresher shark spends most of its time in the deep waters of the open sea, rarely straying into coastal areas.
‘To survive in these colder waters, they have evolved to be endothermic.
‘This means that they can keep their body temperature higher than the temperature of the surrounding water.
‘If you’re lucky, you might see this magnificent shark jump high out of the water in to the air.’
What are thresher sharks?
Thresher sharks are large sharks, with the ‘classic shark shape’ – a torpedo-shaped body, large dorsal fin and large pectoral fins.
The thresher shark is easily told from other sharks by the long upper lobe of the tail, which can be as long as the shark’s body.
Thresher sharks are one of the few shark species known to jump fully out of the water, using their elongated tail to propel them out of the water.
The thresher shark spends most of its time in the deep waters of the open sea, rarely straying into coastal areas.
To survive in these colder waters, they have evolved to be endothermic. This means that they can keep their body temperature higher than the temperature of the surrounding water.
They do this through a specialised heat exchange system, which allows them to conserve heat produced through internal body mechanisms such as metabolism or muscle shivering.
Thresher sharks use their extremely long tail to hunt. They herd smaller fish into tight shoals, swim at them and thrash their tail like a whip, stunning some of the fish and making them easy to catch.
Source: Wildlife Trust
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