🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Female basking sharks give birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
Scientists estimate that basking sharks may have one of the longest gestation periods of any vertebrate, potentially lasting up to three years. That duration exceeds the approximately 22-month gestation of African elephants.
💥 Impact (click to read)
A three-year pregnancy in a fish defies common assumptions about marine reproduction. Combined with slow growth and late maturity, this prolonged gestation severely limits how quickly populations can recover from declines.
Such extreme reproductive biology makes the basking shark particularly vulnerable to overfishing and habitat disruption. Conservation measures must account for the fact that removing even a few breeding individuals can impact generations, because replacement takes years rather than months.
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