"Great Whites Hang Out in Pacific's 'Shark Cafe'"

"PARIS -- Great Whites may be loners, but the ocean's most feared predators also hang out together between Mexico and Hawaii at a deep sea watering hole known as the 'White Shark Cafe,' a study released Wednesday reveals.

No animals inspire more fascination and frissons, but scientists admit to knowing precious little about how the endangered Great Whites get around and get it on as they navigate the globe's oceans.

Like other open water sharks prized for their meat -- and, in Asia, especially for their fins -- the magnificent hunting machines are threatened with extinction, according to experts.

The new study identifies a distinct population and a major new genetic grouping of the Great White in the eastern Pacific, only the third such 'clade' ever found.

The other two concentrations of Carcharodon carcharias are off the coast of South Africa, and in the waters between Australia and New Zealand."

AFP had the story November 4, 2009.