The Mediterranean white shark is of Australian origin

2011/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Zoologia

A group of researchers from the University of Animals of Scotland has announced that the large white sharks that currently inhabit the Mediterranean Sea have their origin in Australia. They say they could be the descendants of a group of Australian sharks who visited South Africa 45,000 years ago. They have reached this conclusion by sequencing mitochondrial DNA, seeing that Mediterranean sharks are directly related to Australians.

The migration of Australian sharks to the South African coast is known, and researchers believe that in one of their migrations Mediterranean sharks took a wrong direction. This group of sharks would ascend the West African coast and traversed the Strait of Gibraltar. Since then, white sharks have turned the Mediterranean into their place of residence.

The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of The Royal Society B. Scientists have suggested that climate change at the time, high sea levels and strong currents on the coasts of South Africa would put sharks in an inadequate direction.