🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Basking sharks possess the largest gill slits of any shark species, nearly encircling the head.
Inside its massive mouth, the basking shark uses elongated gill rakers that act as a biological sieve, trapping plankton as water passes across them. These structures can be shed and regrown, ensuring filtration efficiency during heavy feeding seasons.
💥 Impact (click to read)
The rakers form a dense mesh capable of filtering tiny zooplankton from immense volumes of seawater. As the shark swims forward, water exits through five enormous gill slits, leaving captured prey to be swallowed in concentrated form.
This natural engineering mirrors industrial filtration systems but operates silently in open ocean conditions under high pressure and variable currents. The regenerative ability of the rakers ensures the shark can sustain months of feeding during plankton blooms without losing efficiency.
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