There is a lot there out in the world we still have to discover. Ocean and sea creatures are surely one of the first places we need to explore more.
Once in a time, we get a chance to find some giant animals out there in the ocean as their bodies wash ashore. The size isn’t limited, as once the animal is dead they can float and move around on the ocean currents. When one such animal floats to the shore, it’s on the investigation teams to find everything about the animal.
The Marine Environmental Monitoring (MEM) team–an Environmental Conservation Organization scheme partnered with the UK Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme found an eight-meter (23-foot) blob emerged on the coast of Wales.
The word “blob” was just a temporary name for the unidentified sea creature. The team could identify the mess of cartilage and tissue, and further investigations confirmed the dead creature was a basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus), an enormous species of filter-feeding shark.
The team said that when such a creature comes up, they usually first try to find out the cause of its death. But for this one it was not possible, so they went along to confirm what the creature actually was.
When fresher dead animals are found, Westfield and his team organize the transport of specimens to London Zoo, where a necropsy can be conducted to work out what killed them. While it’s of course too late for the animal being dissected, the outcome can arm conservation organizations with the information they need to bring about better protection for marine species.
Basking sharks are endangered and thus gathering information about them is crucial work, but they are a very rare find for strandings teams in the UK even though they are often sighted alive at sea.
The name of Basking shark comes as they sit below the surface and feed on zooplankton. These basking sharks travel about 1-2miles per hour, looking like they’re basking in the sunlight.
They added that it was rare for these creatures to show up on the coastline like this.
This latest specimen, which is estimated to weigh around four to five tons, poses a logistical challenge as it chose one of the more remote beaches in Wales to land on. Without vehicle access, removing the animal is near-impossible. They concluded saying since they’ve learnt hopefully all of this they could bury it on site.
