Pictured: First ever sighting of newborn great white shark

The first-ever baby great white shark spotted in the wild has been captured on film.

Just five foot long and pure white, the pup, which was thought to be just hours old, was seen by Carlos Gauna, a wildlife cinematographer, and Phillip Sternes, a University of California biologist.

The pair were using an underwater drone camera to look for sharks off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, when they noticed a small ghostly creature swimming in the shallows amid a milky soup.

Mr Sternes, a doctoral student, said: “We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion and realised the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming.

“I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer. In my opinion, this one was likely hours, maybe one day old at most.”

Great whites are the largest predatory sharks in the world and can grow to almost 16 feet in length but their breeding habits are still largely a mystery.

Experts previously believed they gave birth far out to sea but the new footage suggests they may move into shallower waters to reproduce.

First newborn shark spotted alive

Mr Gauna, who has spent thousands of hours filming sharks in the wild, said: “Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science.

“No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive. There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers. But nothing like this.”

Pregnant great whites have been seen in the same area off the coast of Santa Barbara in previous years and Mr Gauna said he had seen three “pregnant” sharks in the preceding weeks.

“I filmed three very large sharks that appeared pregnant at this specific location in the days prior,” he added.

“On this day, one of them dove down and not long afterwards, this fully white shark appears. It’s not a stretch to deduce where the baby came from.”

The pup was filmed around 1,000 feet from the beach, suggesting that the shallow waters of the Calfornian coast may be a regular birthing location for great whites.

“This may well be the first evidence we have of a pup in the wild, making this a definitive birthing location,” added Mr Sternes.

‘Further research needed’

“There are a lot of hypothetical areas but despite intense interest in these sharks, no one’s seen a birth or a newborn pup in the wild.

“Further research is needed to confirm these waters are indeed a great white breeding ground. But if it does, we would want lawmakers to step in and protect these waters to help white sharks keep thriving.”

Great whites are grey on top and white on the bottom but the new images suggest their pups may start out as pure white.

Females give birth to live pups and the young may continue to feed on unfertilised eggs after birth, as well as a “milk” secreted in the uterus by the mother.

The pair said that it was possible the white film could be a skin condition, which would also represent a major breakthrough.

“If that is what we saw, then that too is monumental because no such condition has ever been reported for these sharks,” added Mr Gauna.

The findings were published in a new paper in the journal Environmental Biology of Fishes.