What Is the Fastest Shark? Shortfin Mako Speed Facts

Why is the shortfin mako called the fastest shark?

The shortfin mako earned its reputation from its build, its behavior and decades of reports from anglers and scientists. It has a perfect torpedo shape, a tall crescent-shaped tail and swimming muscles kept warmer than the surrounding water. It chases some of the fastest fish in the sea, including tunas and swordfish, and it is famous for leaping high out of the water.

No other shark combines all of these features so completely, which is why textbooks, aquariums and fisheries agencies usually name the mako as the fastest shark. What is missing is a reliable measurement of how fast it can actually go.

How fast can a mako really swim?

The high figures come from calculations rather than instruments. In 1969, researchers used the leaps of hooked makos to work out that they must leave the water at more than about 35 km/h (22 mph). Later theoretical estimates went as high as about 72 km/h (45 mph), close to the 74 km/h (46 mph) figure repeated in many books and websites.

In 2023, scientists published direct measurements from speed sensors attached to two makos, each about 2 m (6.5 ft) long, off Faial in the Azores. The tags stayed on for one to two days.

The study showed that makos cruise faster than cold-bodied sharks of a similar size, but spend most of their time at an energy-saving pace. The sharks had to be caught on a fishing line to be tagged, and neither was recorded chasing prey, when the fastest bursts would be expected. The researchers concluded that their measurement probably underestimates the mako’s true top speed.

What makes the mako so fast?

Several features make the shortfin mako an outstanding sprinter.

• Body shape. Its smooth, spindle-shaped body is thickest at the middle and tapers at both ends, a shape that keeps drag low for its size.
• Tail. The tall, stiff, crescent-shaped tail produces strong thrust with little drag, and a keel on each side of the narrow tail base helps it slice through the water as the tail sweeps from side to side.
• Warm muscles. Like the great white shark and other mackerel sharks, the mako has blood vessels arranged as a heat exchanger that keeps its swimming muscles several degrees warmer than the water. Warm muscle contracts faster and more powerfully, the same trick used by tunas, as explained in Are bluefin tuna warm-blooded?
• Skin. Shark skin is covered in tiny tooth-like scales called dermal denticles. On a mako’s flanks these scales are unusually flexible, and research suggests they can tilt up slightly in moving water, which may help keep water flowing smoothly along the body and reduce drag.

Leaping makos

The shortfin mako is one of the most acrobatic sharks. Hooked makos often leap high out of the water, sometimes repeatedly, and there are many reports of makos landing in boats.

Leaping is a useful clue to speed. The higher an animal jumps out of the water, the faster it must be moving as it leaves the surface: to rise 3 m (10 ft) straight up, a fish has to break the surface at about 28 km/h (17 mph). This is how the 1969 estimate of more than 35 km/h (22 mph) was made, and it suggests that makos can briefly swim much faster than the speeds recorded by tags so far.

Other fast sharks

Most of the sharks that compete with the mako for speed are its relatives in the mackerel shark family, all of which have warm swimming muscles. Speed sensors have been fitted to only a handful of sharks of each species, so the figures below are snapshots rather than records.

The great white shark cruises slowly but makes explosive rushes at seals, sometimes leaping clear of the water off South Africa. A tagged white shark rushing upward at prey reached about 24 km/h (15 mph), one of the fastest speeds directly measured in any shark.

The porbeagle of the North Atlantic and the salmon shark of the North Pacific are also fast, warm-bodied hunters that keep their bodies much warmer than the cold water they live in. The longfin mako, the shortfin’s rarer cousin, is thought to be less active. Thresher sharks are not record sprinters, but they can whip their long tails fast enough to stun schooling fish.

Are sharks the fastest fish?

Probably not. Large bony fish such as sailfish, marlins, swordfish and tunas are usually considered at least as fast as the mako. Their old record speeds also turned out to be exaggerated: sailfish, once said to reach 110 km/h (68 mph), were measured bursting at about 25 km/h (16 mph) while hunting, as explained in How fast is a sailfish?

The honest answer is that nobody knows which fish is fastest, because almost none have been measured at full speed in the wild. For how sharks and fish compare with the cheetah and the peregrine falcon, see the fastest animals.