For as much as we know about great white sharks, there’s a whole lot that we don’t. One of those unknowns is the fact that no one has ever seen a newborn great white shark — until now, it appears.
“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science,” said Carlos Gauna, who runs a YouTube channel called The Malibu Artist. “No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive. There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers. But nothing like this.”
Gauna, who has been flying his drone over the ocean in search of any and all things shark related, has amassed one of the most incredible collections of great white shark footage anywhere. He’s quick to make sure that no one mistakes him for something he’s not, but it’s clear that his knowledge is in high demand from many in the scientific community.
“I’m not a marine biologist,” he writes in a disclaimer. “As with all YouTube content, I encourage independent verification of facts via official scientific and trustworthy sources. I will strive to post citations for any information I discuss here whenever possible. My goal is to use photography and drones to bring awareness to wildlife and the nature around us. I welcome collaborations with scientists to bring cinematic elements to the educational presentation.”
Given the fact that Gauna very likely films more great whites than anyone else on the planet, it might not be all that surprising to hear that he filmed a newborn. Not all that surprising until you hear that no one has ever done it before.
The white shark in question was caught on Gauna’s camera when he, along with UC Riverside biology doctoral student Phillip Sternes, was scanning the waters for sharks on July 9, 2023, near Santa Barbara, California. They’ve both seen their fair share of sharks, but the one that showed up in the viewfinder was different.
“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said in a press release. “I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”
The images ended up being the focus of a new paper that was published in a journal called The Environmental Biology of Fishes. In it, Gauna and Sternes do admit that the shedding skin could potentially be some sort of skin condition, but neither of them believe that’s a likely explanation.
“I just don’t see how a skin disorder explains this,” Gauna said “Given the size of the shark, given the unique roundness of that dorsal fin – they can’t give birth with a dorsal fin that’s straight and long, straight and pointed. They have to be rounded in order to exit… If [a skin condition] is what we saw, then that too is monumental because no such condition has ever been reported for these sharks.”
Great whites, as you may or may not know, give birth to live pups. There’s a lot about the birthing habits of great whites that we don’t know, but researchers believe they have a gestation period of more than a year. Mothers can carry between one and 10 pups, and the baby sharks are in an egg that hatches inside the mother. After they grow inside for a few more weeks, they are born fully developed. The shark they think gave birth was one of three Gauna was filming for a few days prior, and she appeared to be pregnant.
“On this day, one of them dove down, and not long afterwards, this fully white shark appears,” Gauna said. “It’s not a stretch to deduce where the baby came from.”
Great whites are generally grey on top with white bellies, but when they’re very young, they are paler. The shark that’s thought to be a newborn is the right size and shape, as well. Add all that to the fact that the area is thought to be a birthing location for great whites, and there’s quite a bit of circumstantial evidence to back up their claim.
“In my opinion, this one was likely hours, maybe one day old at most,” Sternes said. “There are a lot of hypothetical areas, but despite intense interest in these sharks, no one’s seen a birth or a newborn pup in the wild. This may well be the first evidence we have of a pup in the wild, making this a definitive birthing location.”
