MEGA SHARK
Dramatic pictures show one of the world’s biggest great white sharks dubbed ‘Ironbound’ as beast stalks US coast
JAW-dropping pictures reveal the huge size of one of the world's biggest great white sharks as the beast prowls close to the US coast.
Called Ironbound, the colossal creature measures up at 12 ft 4 inches and weighs around a scale-busting 452kg.
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The mighty shark was first tagged in October 2019 in waters around Nova Scotia, Canada.
Since then, Ironbound has traveled an estimated 13,000 miles, according to marine research group OCEARCH.
Ironbound - who is fitted with an electric tracker that pings whenever the dorsal fin break the surface of the water - last pinged off the coast of New Jersey at about 10.30pm on April 28.
Just three days earlier, the shark - named after West Ironbound Island near Lunenburg - pinged off the coast of North Carolina as he migrates north.
Bob Hueter, chief scientist at OCEARCH, said the migration of great whites "is an adaptation, of course, to seasonal temperature fluxes, to where the food is".
He said great white sharks in the Atlantic Ocean make the same migration every year as they spend winter in southern waters, often in the Gulf of Mexico, and summer in northern waters close to Canada.
Hueter told : "They're moving north to the very rich feeding grounds off of Canada and the northeastern US."
Ironbound pinged off the coast of North Carolina in November, and by March pinged close to Georgia.
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Hueter added: "He's (Ironbound) gone back and forth from where we found him in Nova Scotia and the Florida Keys several times.
"Mating season is over, we think, and Ironbound is on his way north to get into some good feeding ground and bulk up again for the next year."
Ironbound is one of the biggest great white sharks stalking the US coast.
Others include 17ft Queen of the Ocean, 20ft Haole Girl and 15ft Miss Costa.
The biggest great white ever recorded in Deep Blue, weighing in at a whopping 2.5 tons.
The mammoth female was last spotted off the coast of Hawaii devouring the carcass of a dead sperm whale in 2019.
She had previously been caught on camera 2,600 miles away just off Mexico's west coast in July 2018.
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It comes after a boy had to be taken to hospital after being bitten by a shark on Highland Beach in Florida.
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The teen was standing in shallow water when a small shark darted over and bit his foot.
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