Basking Shark
Cetorhinus maximus
A gentle giant swims with a mouth like a tunnel.
Basking sharks cruise slowly with huge mouths open, filtering clouds of plankton from seawater. Their size looks startling, but their tiny prey is barely bigger than a crumb.
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From field guide to game table
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Quick dive
Creature passport
- Home
- They migrate through cool and temperate coastal and offshore waters worldwide.
- Favorite foods
- They filter zooplankton, fish eggs, and tiny larvae using comb-like gill rakers.
- Size check
- Often 20-26 ft; up to about 33 ft (6-10 m)—bus length
Tell-your-friends facts
Four wonderfully wild things
- 1
The basking shark is the second-largest living fish after the whale shark.
- 2
It is one of only three giant filter-feeding shark species.
- 3
The name comes from sightings of sharks appearing to bask near the surface.
- 4
Basking sharks sometimes leap completely out of the water.
Ocean superpower
Built to be amazing
Enormous gill slits strain plankton from a nonstop river of seawater.
Junior scientist tip
What should I look for?
Look for a huge open mouth, pointed snout, and gill slits circling the head.
Grown-up research links
We used trusted science organizations to check this profile.