Meet The Thresher Shark, A Goofy Predator That Whips Up Cavitation Bubbles To Stun Prey

Their enormous tails can be 3 meters (10 feet) long, accounting for around half their body length. They look like whips, and they act like whips, creating changes in pressure so drastic that it generates cavitation bubbles – pockets of vaporized water that generate light, sound, and heat.

Thresher shark “tail-whipping”

Most of the time, a thresher shark’s tail is gently swishing side to side to move through the water, but it’s capable of a drastically different maneuver when it’s time to feed. Known as “tail-whipping”, a thresher shark attack can be broken down into four stages:

• Preparation – the shark lunges towards its prey
• Strike – the shark flexes its tail, so it whips overhead at great speed
• Wind-down recovery – the shark returns to a swimming posture
• Prey collection – the shark consumes stunned prey

The anatomical adaptations that enable this tail whip were revealed in a 2024 study that looked at 10 common thresher shark specimens ranging from embryo to adult. Scans revealed there were significant changes to the mineralized microarchitecture of the thresher sharks’ vertebrae depending on their age.

“We found that anatomy and microstructure significantly varied along the body and among developmental groups – embryonic, juvenile and adult common thresher sharks,” said Jamie Knaub, first author from Florida Atlantic University, in a statement. “Based on our results, we believe that thresher shark vertebrae vary in anatomy, and the amount and arrangement of mineral, supporting the mechanical needs for tail-whipping.”

Hunting with tails?

For a long time, we only suspected that thresher sharks used their tails to hunt, but this wasn’t described in academic literature until 2013, when a study looked at 25 recordings of pelagic thresher shark attacks. The footage showed that they were indeed using their tails to hunt, debilitating sardines with tail whips at all times of the day.

The authors wrote that the tail whips were occurring with such force that they appeared to cause dissolved gas to diffuse out of the water column, forming bubbles. This can occur through cavitation, whereby an object moves through water at speeds high enough to lower the localized water pressure to below its vapor pressure, forming bubbles. When these bubbles collapse, they can generate sound and light through sonoluminescence, something we see in pistol shrimp.

Thresher shark diet

Thresher sharks generally spend the day deep underwater searching for squid and octopus to eat, but when the Sun sets, they’ll rise close to the surface to whip up some dinner. Typically, that consists of shoaling fish like herring, mackerel, and sardines. These fish come conveniently packed close together, so a tail-whip may stun several at a time – easy pickings that a thresher shark can scoop up during the “prey collection” phase.

Thresher shark size

There are three species of thresher shark: the common thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus), bigeye thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus), and pelagic thresher shark (Alopias pelagicus). The biggest of the three is the common thresher shark, which can be up to 5.8 meters long (19 feet), reports the Shark Trust.

In second place is the bigeye thresher shark at 4.8 meters (15.7 feet), and then we have the pelagic shark at a more modest 3.6 meters (11.8 feet). They differ in their coloration and eye size (we don’t need to tell you who is the googliest), but they’re united in their distinctly whip-like tails.

Where do thresher sharks live

Thresher shark range also depends on the species, but the common thresher shark is the most widespread, found in tropical and temperate seas all over the world. The bigeye is also found across the world, but has a lower tolerance for cold water compared to the common thresher shark. Meanwhile, the smallest pelagic thresher sharks are found only in the Indo-Pacific Ocean.

Across their various ranges, they’re found in both coastal waters and the open ocean and can dive to depths of up to 650 meters (2,133 feet). Then at night they return to the surface because – you guessed it – it’s tail-whipping time.