Great white shark tracked off Assateague, Rehoboth

A great white shark called Yeti has been tracked as swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off Assateague Island in Virginia.

The female shark, which is 11 feet long and weighs 960 pounds, was swimming south, according to OCEARCH, an organization that shares real-time data through its global shark tracker.

The shark "pinged" Thursday evening just off the island. A ping happens when a tracked shark's dorsal fin breaks the water's surface and transmits a signal to a satellite, which then sends back to the tracker program on Earth the animal's location.

Yeti was tagged in Nantucket, Massachusetts in October of this year. She was named after a company that supports OCEARCH expeditions.

The shark earlier in the week was tracked off Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

The shark's most recent location was noted at 7:44 a.m. Friday, when it was swimming south off the Northampton County, Virginia coast.

In one previous "ping," the shark erroneously appeared to be in the Chesapeake Bay.

OCEARCH and its Global Shark Tracker last year had 12.2 billion media impressions, 150 million impressions on Facebook, and 36 million impressions on Twitter.

On Twitter @cvvaughn

757-787-1200, ext. 115