Could the warming North Sea attract great white sharks?

A Mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) at Cape Point, South Africa, a relative of the extinct cosmopolitodus hastalis, which once prowled the North Sea. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy

Last year water temperatures in the North Sea reached record levels, with average surface temperatures a balmy 11.6C, the warmest since measurements started in 1969. And as waters continue to warm, a new study suggests great white sharks could start prowling British waters.

Olivier Lambert, from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, and colleagues studied whale fossils recovered from North Sea sediments dated to around 5m years ago. North Sea waters were warmer at this time and were home to several species of whale and shark. Fossilised tooth fragments embedded in the whale skulls revealed that sharks had feasted on them.