By Nicholas Weiler, Live Science Contributor | August 31, 2015 08:45am ET
One of the toothy stars of "Shark Week" has phoned home after five months at sea, revealing that this longfin mako shark was a prolific and deep-diving swimmer.
On Valentine's Day, researchers from the United States and Cuba came together near Cojimar in northern Cuba to put a satellite tag on a rare longfin mako shark.
Remarkably, in the following five months, the mysterious deep-water shark swam 5,500 miles (8,850 kilometers), averaging 36.5 miles (58.7 km) a day. In April, the animal followed the Gulf Stream west into the Gulf of Mexico, then looped back north and east through the Bahamas in May, and into the deep Atlantic Ocean. In June, the shark circled as far north as the coast of New Jersey, before traveling southeast toward Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. There, the animal's satellite tag detached (as it was programmed to do) in mid-July and started calling in the shark's travelogue, to the excitement of the researchers.
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