An enormous great white shark was spotted swimming off the coast of Florida this week just as Spring Break begins to kick off.
The beast of a shark, who has been dubbed Scott weighed in at an impressive 720kg after being spotted by oceanic non-profit group OCEARCH on Thursday.
Scott had also had a tag attached to him in September 2021 which pings information about his movements to scientists every time he breaks the surface.
It revealed that he had travelled all the way from Nova Scotia to the Florida coastline in just 119 days, covering a distance of 6,292 km.
The apex predator had been swimming around Florida since around Valentine's Day.
Great white sharks form an important part of keeping marine ecosystems balanced as they hunt mammals such as seals which are rich in nutritious blubber.
Great whites are often spotted relatively close to coastlines as these environments provide the reliable supply of food that large predators need to survive, much more than if they moved into the relatively sparse open oceans.
They move closer to shore during Spring and Summer, and are known to live in both sub-tropical and temperate waters such as those further north.
Although there have been numerous accounts, as yet there have not been any confirmed sightings of great white sharks in UK waters, although the UK does have conditions which would suit the species.
Some sightings can be explained as being the UK native porbeagle shark, which is from the same family as the great white and has a similar shape and colour pattern, but is much smaller.
An untrained eye could easily confuse the two if seen from above.
Nonetheless, the UK does play host to an even bigger species in the basking shark, though these 10m sharks are filter feeders and feed mostly on zooplankton, which is minute animals such as shrimps, copepods, fish eggs, and even potentially tiny fish.
Great whites however are far more active hunters, catching their prey by swimming at it very quickly from below and striking it at such speed that their momentum sometimes carries them completely from the water.
Scot's weight of 720kg actually makes him of about average weight for a male of the species, with males mostly being between 520kg and 780kg.
Females can grow much larger, and a specimen named Deep Blue was estimated as weighing as much as 2.5 tons, with a length of nearly 7m.
Despite their fearsome reputation, attacks on humans are rare and often the result of an 'exploratory' bite, though unfortunately what is exploratory for the shark can be very dangerous to a human.
The sharks are nonetheless largely uninterested in people, with several divers now documented swimming alongside the creatures.
Unfortunately due to factors such as pollution and becoming entangled in nets, they are classified by the World Wildlife Fund as 'vulnerable', which is only one step above 'endangered'.
