🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Basking sharks often swim slowly in circles within blooms to maximize plankton intake.
Dense plankton blooms in temperate waters can draw aggregations of dozens of basking sharks feeding simultaneously. Each individual may weigh several tons, yet all converge on patches of organisms invisible to the naked eye.
💥 Impact (click to read)
The image of multiple bus-length sharks cruising side by side illustrates how concentrated plankton productivity can reshape entire marine scenes. A patch of drifting microorganisms can temporarily support the biomass equivalent of several elephants.
These feeding gatherings demonstrate the immense power of bottom-up ecological forces. In the open ocean, the smallest life forms dictate the movements and clustering of some of the largest vertebrates on the planet.
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