Twelve babies could be inside a great white shark swimming towards Britain The Telegraph reported Tuesday.
"If I had to guess, I would guess that Lydia is pregnant and that she has been out in the open ocean gestating her babies and that this spring she will lead us to where those baby white sharks are born - the nursery," Chris Fischer, expedition leader and founding chairman of the Ocearch shark tagging project told The Telegraph.
Officials think the 15 foot animal named Lydia is aiming for shore to care for her offspring, and are therefore keeping an eye on her via a GPS device during her travels in the Atlantic Ocean, which currently see her 800 miles off the United Kingdom coast.
She has already gone over 19,400 miles during the last year, and had an electronic monitoring gadget attached to her so officials could undergo a marine life study The Telegraph reported.
"The sperm from the male comes in a packet with a shell on it. They can carry it around for a while until a special organ inside them breaks down the shell and they get pregnant," Fischer told The Telegraph.
Scientists could not figure out whether the great white shark was pregnant or not after medical examinations . The way the fish species give birth was also puzzling.
"We know it's 18 months from when we discover the breeding aggregation to when they lead us to the nursery," Fischer told The Telegraph.
"What we don't know is how long do they carry that sperm packet and how long is it until their body breaks down the shell," Fischer told The Telegraph. If you forced me to guess where that was, I'd say it was over in the Mediterranean, near Turkey - but that's longball I'm playing. She could turn around right now and head back to Florida."
