Sharks feel the heat to make trips around our shores to feed on plankton

New pictures have revealed for the first time how basking sharks navigate using thermal sensors.

The pictures show how basking sharks use changes in water temperature to help them find their way around the ocean.

Scientists from Plymouth Marine Laboratory made their discovery after taking thermal pictures of plankton blooms off the Cornish coast over a two-week period.

They revealed that basking sharks use thermal fronts to guide them to higher concentrations of zooplankton in areas where warm water from the Atlantic pushes into coastal waters on the western coast.

The sharks use incredibly sensitive thermal sensors guide them to these "oceanfronts".

Researcher Dr Peter Miller said: "Basking sharks can sense differences in temperature down to a hundredth of a degree and they use these thermal sensors to help them forage for food.

"It's a bit like an atmospheric front but, instead of cold and warm air, it's cold and warm water.

"The line where the two meet is called an oceanfront. These can be productive areas of the ocean because you get this extreme mixing and nutrients that lead to higher growth of plankton.

"What we see on the map isn't what the basking sharks eat."