Researchers working in the waters off Nova Scotia have found a huge great white shark that weighs 1,606 kilograms and measures nearly 5.25 metres in length.
Scientists from OCEARCH, an NGO that is tagging and sampling white sharks, described the female shark as "queen of the ocean" and say they have called her Nukumi.
"We named her 'Nukumi', pronounced noo-goo-mee, for the legendary wise old grandmother figure of the Native American Mi'kmaq people," OCEARCH wrote in a Facebook post Saturday.
"With the new data we've collected, this matriarch will share her #wisdom with us for years to come."
Nukumi is the largest of eight great whites that researchers have sampled during the current expedition, which has been running for 27 days as of Monday.
OCEARCH also posted a video showing Nukumi lying on a special submersible platform built onto the side of its research vessel with researchers around her, and subsequently swimming away.
OCEARCH is an ocean data-collection organization that has tagged and collected samples from hundreds of sharks, dolphins, seals and other animals.
The group is using the data to learn about migration patterns and uncover previously unknown details about shark lives.
In October 2019, OCEARCH caught and tagged a male shark they named Ironbound off Lunenburg, N.S.
By late December his tracker showed the shark had traveled down the U.S. East Coast to Key Biscayne, near Miami, OCEARCH said at the time.
Great white sharks are the world's largest predatory fish, according to the World Wildlife Federation, and are known to rip chunks out of their prey, which are swallowed whole.
Despite their fearsome reputation, the WWF says the sharks are a vulnerable species and their numbers are decreasing.
