Thresher sharks are among the goofiest of Chondrichthyes. With big googly eyes, they seem sweet enough at the head end, but their tails? Now they’re all business. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

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 thr

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