yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Great White Sharks of Guadalupe Island | Most Wanted Sharks


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

NARRATOR: But everyone loves Lucy. The story of this great white is the classic "Finding Nemo" tale, but about 2,000 pounds heavier. When divers spotted Lucy back in 2008, her distinctive tail wound looked fresh. And she seemed in desperate need of a good meal. A damaged caudal often puts a shark's life in danger. It's crucial for propelling a shark through water.

APRYL BOYLE: Lucy's tail deformity could be from fighting with another shark when she was younger.

NARRATOR: And Lucy's not only survived, she's thrived. She did it by modifying the way she swims to sway a little more than the average great white. And now Lucy's adoring public keeps an eye out for her signature floppy fin and her unique swagger. Unlike other female great whites, Lucy returns to Guadalupe Island every year. And that is because she has not given birth yet. If she did, she'd be gone at least 12 to 18 months, because that's how long a shark pregnancy lasts.

NARRATOR: Fans don't know for sure why Lucy is still not a mom. It could be that male sharks are turned off by her misshapen fin. Or maybe Lucy hasn't yet met Zapata, the most famous and recognizable male great white of Guadalupe Island. This tough guy is a 14-footer, who has mixed it up with other apex predators and has the battle scars to prove it.

RALPH COLLIER: Zapata is a very large shark. To sustain the wounds it received, the attacking shark must have been very large, possibly 18 or 20 feet in length.

NARRATOR: He might not play well with other sharks. But luckily, unlike Bullet, Zapata actually enjoys hanging out with people. That's my favorite shark right there, Zapata.

NARRATOR: Scarboard, at an intimidating 18 feet long, isn't just one of the most massive sharks at Guadalupe Island, she's one of the biggest great whites in the world. But like all sharks, no one will know for sure how old she is until after she dies.

RALPH COLLIER: One of the ways to determine the age of a shark is by dissecting it. If we cut through a vertebra, we can see rings similar to those of a tree showing annual growth. She got her nautically themed name because of scars on the right, or starboard, side of her body.

APRYL BOYLE: When sharks engage in head-to-head combat, they can do incredible damage to each other, which is what happened to Scarboard. But sharks have amazing healing abilities.

NARRATOR: Scarboard shows up at Guadalupe every other year. And the next time you see her, many of her scars might be gone. Bullet, Lucy, Zapata, and Scarboard, four sharks whose physical flaws grabbed our attention and helped make them famous.

More Articles

View All
How Close Are We to Flying Cars? | How Sci-Fi Inspired Science
You’re stuck on the highway, bumper-to-bumper traffic. A commute that should have taken a few minutes has now somehow become an hour-long endeavor. And this happens. We all have one of two thoughts: one, monster truck; or two, wish I could just fly over t…
Firefighters Reflect on 9/11 | 9/11: One Day in America
[Music] Thanks. [Applause] Stay together, stay together. Let me know what’s going on. Um, we knew at that moment that our problem just doubled in size. [Music] So at that point, we met in the football huddle. I’m going to send him out. Deputy Chief, the D…
The Nurse Keeping Explorers Alive | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
Foreign. This is a National Geographic map of the world. We’re in a basement office at National Geographic headquarters, and Karen Berry is standing in front of a huge map that stretches from floor to ceiling. Like a military general, she points out explo…
Avni Patel Thompson at the Seattle Female Founders Conference
So the first speaker you’re gonna hear today is Omnipotent Thompson, the founder of Poppy. Poppy is a site that connects parents with great caregivers for their children. So Omni and her co-founder went through Y Combinator in Winter 2016. She’s also an i…
Sweetening the Deal | Yukon River Run
Saw y’all come in and wondered what the deal was in a town this far down river. 11 tons of lumber will get people’s attention in a hurry. What do you plan to do with it? We were planning to sell this raft and cow tag for cash money, and that’s where we’r…
Applying the chain rule twice | Advanced derivatives | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy
Let’s say that y is equal to sine of x squared to the third power, which of course we could also write as sine of x squared to the third power. What we’re curious about is what is the derivative of this with respect to x? What is dy/dx, which we could als…