What do great white sharks like to eat? Experts offer a list, with a few surprises

Great white sharks are apex predators and can eat what they want, but do they have favorite foods?

Experts say they do and have come up with a list that includes a few surprises — like lobster.

“It’s surprisingly difficult to study something as simple as what do white sharks eat?” according to Dan Madigan, a researcher working with the nonprofit OCEARCH.

“What are the most important food sources, not just what do they eat, but what do they rely on the most?”

Their preferred menu has been revealed with the help of muscle samples taken from sharks in the northwest Atlantic, according to a video posted by OCEARCH. Madigan says the samples can show what a shark ate as far back as two years.

So what have they found?

Bigger sharks love a plump, tasty seal, along with sea lions, sea otters, dolphins, and juvenile whales, he reports. They’ll also eat a full-grown whale, but only after it’s already dead.

Younger, smaller sharks like a lot of the same things, but they are not averse to eating lobster and crabs, Madigan says.

Sharks are also eating a lot of plastic, but not by choice, OCEARCH reports. (Experts learned this by putting shark poop under a microscope.)

Humans were not listed on the menu — there were only 57 unprovoked shark attacks on people in 2020 (that’s globally), according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack Files. Thirteen fatal attacks were recorded, “10 of which were confirmed to be unprovoked,” the file says.

OCEARCH has caught and tagged white sharks as big as 17.2 feet and 3,541 pounds, but National Geographic notes they can grow as big as 20 feet and 5,000 pounds.

“They (white sharks) are considered generalists, or opportunistic predators, so they eat everything,” according to Madigan, who is a research associate with the University of Windsor.

The research is being conducted to learn more about what great white sharks rely on, and where they are prone to hunt for it, he said. Those favorite feeding spots often vary by region, as the sharks migrate up and down the East Coast, Madigan said.

OCEARCH is trapping and tagging great white sharks sharks in the Northwest Atlantic as part of multiyear study to learn their habits, including where they mate and where they give birth. Among the discoveries made by the agency: Great white sharks tagged in the Northwest Atlantic migrate annually into the Gulf of Mexico.

This story was originally published February 24, 2021 at 10:36 AM with the headline "What do great white sharks like to eat? Experts offer a list, with a few surprises."