The average Great White shark is roughly 11-15 feet long, but one Great White that was filmed in recent years, is much, much larger than its brothers and sisters.
Her name is Deep Blue and, at an estimated 20-feet long, 10-feet wide and possibly still growing, she’s widely considered to be among the largest great white sharks ever caught on camera. It’s thought that she could be more than 50 years old.
Mauricio Hoyos Padilla, a shark conservationist working for Discovery’s “Shark Week,” shot jaw-dropping footage of the massive creature off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island in 2013. In the video, the gargantuan creature swam up to the crew’s dive cage and poked around curiously before disappearing back into the blue.
Just look at the size of Deep Blue in comparison to the diver!
Just for reference, Deep Blue is just about as big as a school bus.
Researchers managed to affix a tag to Deep Blue during their expedition. The tag is a scientific device that transmits the shark’s depth, location and other data to help researchers better understand the animal’s behavior and movement.
Deep Blue swam back into the spotlight again in early 2019 off the coast of Hawaii, where she was spotted by a National Geographic documentary crew as she feasted on a whale carcass.
The underwater footage shot by photographer Mark Mohler showed marine biologist Andrew Gray and fellow photographer Kimberly Jeffries swimming just feet from Deep Blue, cameras in hand as they captured rare footage of the creature.
The fact that such a large Great White was found to exist, one’s imagination can only run wild as to what other large Great White sharks lurk deep in the ocean waters! Fascinating really!