Two great white sharks currently hanging out in Gulf of Mexico

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Two great white sharks are hanging out in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida. 

Yeti, a 11-foot-long female white shark that was tagged in October 2016 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, pinged with her tracker just south of Tampa Bay, off the coast of Fort Myers. 

Hilton, a 12-foot-long male white shark tagged off Hilton Head, SC in March of last year, had been swimming up near the Florida panhandle for a few days until he recently also just pinged off the coast of Fort Myers.

Both of the sharks can be tracked through Ocearch, which studies and tracks critical data related to marine life including great white and tiger sharks. Ocearch also works with conservation outreach and education efforts globally. 

The sharks both pinged on the east coast of Florida and then not again until they hit the west coast of Florida, making it appear as though they had somehow traveled over land, prompting many questions on Twitter. 

"Lots of questions," Ocearch responded. "They didn't take a bus or learn to fly. Instead, a tracker connects pings with a straight line and both rounded the peninsula between pings," they said.

Earlier this year, a shark named Miss Costa rang in the new year swimming up and down the Florida Gulf coast, and in February, a female great white shark named Savannah pinged off the coast of Hernando County. 

The Ocearch Global Shark Tracker shares real-time data as the sharks ping locations around the world. The sharks can be tracked online or on the Global Shark Tracker Apps available for Apple and Android.