basking shark

noun

basking shark

noun

A very large shark, Cetorhinus maximus, that feeds at or close to the surface by filtering plankton from the water and is found in all the world's temperate oceans.

Like the whale shark, the basking shark is a huge, slow-moving plankton feeder. Also like the whale shark, the basking shark is the sole member of a family created especially to accommodate it.1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 89:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.