Katharine, a 14-foot-long, 2,300-pound great white shark, has broken the 10,000-mile mark and is now off the coast of Cocoa Beach, Florida.
The research nonprofit tagged the shark off the coast of Cape Cod in August 2013 and has been tracking her and a number of other white sharks since. Katharine鈥檚 path shows that not all white sharks migrate randomly, but rather purposefully鈥攆or food or mating or to seek more ideal temperatures鈥.
鈥淪he鈥檚 basically a snowbird,鈥 Greg Skomal, a scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, . 鈥淢y guess is that her migration is mitigated by water temperature, hence the seasonal pattern.鈥
Katharine鈥檚 10,717-mile saga has garnered her an impressive social media fan base. Her Twitter account,聽, has more than 18,000 followers. Each ping showing her location makes headlines across the Atlantic coast and gives scientists new information on the species鈥 unique migration patterns.
After her tagging, Katharine went south for the winter but surprised scientists by entering the Gulf of Mexico during the summer. Typically, water temperatures during summer are too warm for great whites.
鈥淲e are learning together as we look at these tracks,鈥 Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory, told USA Today. 鈥淲e鈥檝e thrown out everything we thought we knew about the species in the Atlantic.鈥