To track the sharks over a long period of time, researchers fitted 20 males and 4 females with satellite tags. These tags sent information about an individual’s position when it came to the water surface.

Previously it had been thought tiger sharks remain around coastal areas but some of the 24 sharks were tracked over 7,500km (4,660 miles) each year in a round trip to winter in the Caribbean’s coral reefs and spending the summer in the mid-North Atlantic’s open waters. Remarkably, the sharks followed the same pattern each year and returned to almost the same small area in the Caribbean each time. Such epic annual migrations are more similar to those of birds and turtles than other fishes.

Tiger Beach anyone?

Tiger sharks tagged at Bermuda displayed extensive space-use throughout the northwest Atlantic. None of the tiger sharks was recorded entering the Caribbean Sea, nor crossing the mid-Atlantic Ridge. In contrast, during summer the majority of sharks adopted a temperate, oceanic habit, with most occupying open water north/northeast of Bermuda.

The animals repeatedly spent the winter off Caribbean islands or nearby locations including the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla. They then travelled northwards into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, with some reaching as far north as Connecticut, US.

There was a more dispersed distribution of locations in both spring (sharks generally moving north) and autumn (generally moving south), representing migratory transitions between the winter insular and summer oceanic phases.