Slow Sharks Sneak Up on Sleeping Seals (and Eat Them)?
But there's no proof for sleeping-seal theory, expert says.
Though the species eat mostly fish, Greenland sharks in the far north have been found with seal parts in their stomachs.
The remains are "often fresh and free from carnivorous invertebrates such as brittle stars and amphipods, which made us believe that sharks can eat living seals," study leader Yuuki Watanabe said by email.
Scientists recently tagged the sharks to track their movements around Svalbard, a group of islands in the Norwegian Arctic. The results revealed that the sharks' top speed was half that of most seal species.
"Although this species is often described as 'sluggish,' it was a surprise to us that a three-meter [ten-foot] shark moves at the speed of a crawling baby," said Watanabe, a marine biologist at
