NEW YORK, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- A female great white shark tagged in waters off South Africa in 2003 has completed the first known transoceanic trip for an individual shark.
Traveling farther than any other known shark, it swam more than 12,400 miles to the coast of Australia and back again, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City.
The epic odyssey of Nicole -- named after Australian actress and white shark lover Nicole Kidman -- has astounded researchers, who now must change long-held ideas about how white sharks move through the world's oceans.
In addition to traveling farther than any other known shark, Nicole completed the trip from South Africa to Australia and back in just under nine months, the fastest return migration of any swimming marine organism known.
"This is one of the most significant discoveries about white shark ecology and suggests we might have to rewrite the life history of this powerful fish," said WCS researcher Dr. Ramón Bonfil, shark expert and lead author of the study. "More importantly, Nicole has shown us that separate populations of great white sharks may be more directly connected than previously thought..."
The research appears in the journal Science
