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🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Without intact gill rakers, basking sharks cannot effectively filter plankton from seawater.
Basking sharks shed their gill rakers after intensive feeding seasons and regenerate them before the next plankton bloom. These comb-like structures are essential for filtering microscopic prey from seawater.
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💥 Impact (click to read)
Discarding a critical feeding structure would seem catastrophic for most animals. For basking sharks, seasonal regeneration ensures peak filtration efficiency when plankton densities rise again.
This cyclical rebuilding mirrors industrial maintenance cycles but occurs within living tissue. The process reflects a precise biological adaptation to fluctuating food availability in temperate oceans.
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