Shark! Shark! Shark!
Would the Summer of Death truly be complete without a giant shark washing up on the shores of Long Island, New York? We think not!
A 20 foot long shark, which in case you're not steeped in shark knowledge is freaking huge, washed up on a Long Island beach this afternoon. Oh, but don't worry—This shark was a "harmless" plankton eater.
Turns out there's nothing to fear here. This was a basking shark which, though big, is not considered dangerous.
"He's a plankton feeder. You can see inside there's no teeth inside his mouth," said marine biologist Tracy Marcus. "He's a relatively harmless kind of shark, but large."
"It's the second largest fish in the world, second to the whale shark," Marcus said.
Marcus works with the Cornell Cooperative Extension and examined the giant fish.
"I don't see any major scarring, I mean there is a little bit of a boat hit, it looks like, a little bit of rawness near the tail, but nothing that would kill a shark," Marcus said.
"Basking shark?" What the hell is a "basking shark?" We read every shark book ever published during our shark-obsessed youth and we never heard of anything called a Goddamn "basking shark!" Plankton-eater or not, we're canceling all plans to go to the beach for the immediate future.
