IMAX 2023 🦈🎆🎉
Apart from last nights NYE celebrations onboard MV. Rodney Fox, the crew were excited to report Ol’ Wonky Tail had joined us to see-out 2022 and he also welcomed in the new year today!
Since we first recorded IMAX in 2008, this is now the 16th Calendar year that we’ve sighted him. Technically its a 14.5 year run over those 16 x consecutive Calander years but that doesn’t sound as impressive! 😜
This showing puts IMAX above (Mr.) “Moo” last seen in 2014, and the most likely other contender now for the Neptune Islands residency record is big ol’ Scarface who after a 3 year absence was recorded again just last spring. Hopefully Scarface will take up the challenge and also return back this year, however unlike IMAX this particular rival is known to skip a year or so between recorded appearances.
IMAX was first recorded at the Neptune Islands in 2008 and adopted and named by leading UW IMAX film producers Howard and Michelle Hall during the “Under the Sea 3D” shoot. This distinctive shark with a significantly deformed wonky tail is now the star in multiple film documentaries and featuring prominently in the image collections of many of our guests.
Imax was already a pretty significant sized subadult to Adult above 3.5m in 2008 where he was potentially up to 15 years old. So It’s reasonable to deduce he might now be over 30 years old.
He was initially recorded arriving just once/year at the North Neptune Islands Group along with the bigger female sharks around our Australian late Autumn and Winter months, however in recent years has also regularly appeared for a summer holiday.