The basking shark, scientific name Cetorhinus maximus, Manx name Gobbag vooar (big mouth) is the second largest fish in the world and we, in the Isle of Man, are fortunate enough to have a large number of them coming through our coastal waters from mid May to the beginning of September.
Basking sharks are, like all sharks, part of the family of fishes known as elasmobranches. The skeleton of elasmobranch fish is made of cartilage, a material not unlike the hard gristle found around mammalian joints.
This section of our site looks at the general biology, feeding, reproduction and raises the question do basking sharks hibernate?
