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The breeding females

The Giants

Six metres. When one of these animals arrives at the Neptune Islands, everything else in the water looks smaller.

Andrew Fox calls them "legendary and sought after by many passengers... despite these big breeding girls often staying away from being recorded for years at a time."1

They are not residents. They cycle through on timescales driven by reproduction — which in white sharks may span years and remains poorly understood at any size.2 Most of what is known about these three sits in the Foundation's database, not in public sources. What follows is what can responsibly be said.

Individual

Dolly

Six-metre class. Recorded on rare occasions, years between appearances. Identifiable on approach by size alone — well above the 4-to-5-metre range of the regular residents. Specific marks and sighting history held in the Foundation's database.

Individual

Rhea

Another of the giant breeding females. Recorded infrequently over an extended timeframe, with long intervals between appearances. Identification details and sighting history sit within the Foundation's photo-ID programme.

Individual

UFO

The name fits. Sudden appearances, long gaps, difficult to predict. Recorded across a span of years at the Neptune Islands, but the sightings are sparse enough that each one feels less like a routine visit and more like a sighting of something that was never quite supposed to be there.

Sources

  1. Divernet — Interview with Andrew Fox
  2. Fox Shark Research Foundation — Public communications
  3. Rodney Fox Expeditions — The Neptune Islands

Draft|Photography, biographical detail, and approval pending from the Fox Shark Research Foundation.