The basking shark’s scientific name, Cetorhinus maximus, roughly translates to “great-nosed sea monster” in Greek. In reality, these placid sharks, found the world over, are totally harmless.

Why it matters: Basking sharks are one of the sharks most often mistaken for great white sharks when seen from above water. Both are known to swim near the ocean surface with their dorsal fin ...

The sighting of a basking shark in Cornwall this week has been dubbed "exciting" by a wildlife trust. It comes after a video emerged on social media of the animal in St Ives harbour. Abby Crosby ...

It has been recreated in the video above using the most up-to-date modern science. That's way bigger than the basking shark, the biggest fish in the UK. It's bigger than the biggest whale shark ...

Marine researchers are investigating the recent death of a basking shark that washed up on Mayo Beach in Wellfleet, in the same general area where another basking shark washed up eight years ago.

One of those sharks unfortunately washed up dead on a Cape beach earlier this week, as researchers responded to Wellfleet Harbor and took samples from the massive 6,000-pound basking shark.

They use more than 5,000 gill rakers to strain 25 kg of plankton from around 1.5 million litres of water per hour which is around the size of a swimming pool Basking sharks are found across the globe.