A legendary great white shark caught near Prince Edward Island in 1983 was much less mature than previously thought, new research suggests.
Measuring more than 17 feet long, the Prince Edward Island shark is the largest accurately measured shark on record,
The Discovery Channel said in its list of the Top 5 Legendary Sharks.
The female shark was 20 years old, which is considered a teenager in shark year
s, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The shark was among several examined in a study that revealed that great white sharks grow more slowly and mature much later than previously thought, living to about 70 years and reaching maturity at about 30 years.
"If it would have lived longer it would have gotten a lot bigger,” Steven Campana, of the Canadian Shark Research Lab at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, said, according to CBC.
The age of the sharks was determined by exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and '60s.
Great white sharks are an endangered species,
making research difficult, South Coast Today reported.
New studies move the ages of sexual maturity for great white sharks to 26 for males and 33 for females, compared with the previous belief that male sharks matured at 4 to 10 years, and females at 7 to 13 years, the newspaper said.
The new findings are important for fisheries' management in helping to determine how many sharks can be taken out of the population without harming that population, Lisa Natanson, at NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Rhode Island, said, according to South Coast Today.
The P.E.I. shark was hauled up dead in a net in 1983. Two other sharks may have been larger than the P.E.I. shark at 21 feet and 23 feet, but their measurements have
come under scrutiny, Grind TV reported.
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