VIDEO: 25-Foot Basking Shark Spotted Off the Coast Of Massachusetts

By  //  May 18, 2015

ABOVE VIDEO: A massive shark appeared off the Massachusetts coastline Friday and the Massachusetts State Police caught it on video. (Mass State Police Video)

The basking shark is the second largest living fish, after the whale shark and is one of three plankton-eating sharks besides the whale shark and megamouth shark.

Basking sharks can open their mouths up to 1.2 m wide which is just under 4 feet.

They swim slowly at the surface in pairs and sometimes with up to as many as 100 other basking sharks, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

They are referred to as a filter feeder which means they move along the water with their mouth open.

Their body filters out the water and they are able to consume what they find in it.

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A great deal of cleaning up the waters is taken care of by the basking shark in this manner.

Various types of debris are completely eliminated from it when they are present.