Brutus the great white shark is a girl.
Shark expert Clinton Duffy has just spent several days in Northland hoping to tag great whites, including Brutus - a great white that lives in and around the Houhora Harbour.
Unfortunately, the large shark with the masculine nickname was nowhere to be seen.
There is
news about Brutus, though.
Mr Duffy said Brutus was almost definitely a female.
"The females get a lot bigger than the males, up to seven metres long, and many do return to the same area year after year. That's part of what my research is about, tracking their movements.
"But, yes, I think Brutus, or Tupuna Charlie, or whoever it is, is almost definitely a girl."
Mr Duffy, a Department of Conservation shark expert, spent a day in a helicopter and two days at sea in the Far North last week looking for great whites.
But his efforts proved unsuccessful and he plans to return mid-February.
"I have tantalising anecdotal information that there are huge (great) whites in Northland."
He was not sure why there were so few sharks in late January, as he expected the females to have given birth in the harbours in November.
"So where are they? I'm not sure. It's all part of the research."
Mr Duffy said there was little data on great white sharks and he had been researching them around New Zealand since 2005, with experts from as far away as Germany and the United States.
He believed Northland had a large shark population, including a high number of juvenile sharks.
"That's for a range of reasons, mainly cause you've got extensive shallow areas that are supported by large numbers of fish, and pups are almost entirely fish eaters," he said.
"Also, warm water encourages growth, so the females tend to breed in those areas."
During his few days in Northland, he managed to tag and release a bronze-whaler shark.
He saw two more bronze-whalers from the air, a hammerhead shark, and one shark that "might have been a `white'," off the end of Parengarenga Harbour.
Mr Duffy wants to put tracking devices on great whites, to get a better understanding of their habits, and also to take DNA samples to learn more about their breeding.
