16ft great white shark found with mysterious circular hole in head

A great white shark has been found with a mysterious circular hole in its head.

In a new study, which has been published in the journal, Frontiers in Marine Science, scientists have explained how wounds and scars found on sharks can reveal a great deal about their lives.

Sharing a video of the shark - which is 16ft in length - The California White Shark Project showed a circular hole in the creature's head.

"The scars and wounds seen on the sharks tell us about their interactions with each other, their environment, their prey and humans,” said study author Scot Anderson.

"Many of the scars are distinctive enough so they can be easily classified, such as cookiecutter shark bite scars that are round full circle or a crescent moon mark when they don’t remove the bite.”

The shark can be seen with a hole in its head (California White Shark Project)

The shark's circular scar indicates that it has been bitten by a cookiecutter shark, which feeds by biting small chunks of larger animals.

Oceana explain: "It uses its sharp, pointed upper teeth to latch on the skin of a much larger shark, bony fish, or marine mammal and its thick, strong, triangular lower teeth to scoop out a mouth-sized chunk of flesh (or blubber).

"Several species – including bluefin tuna, great white sharks, spinner dolphins, and other large predators – have been observed with one or more scars caused by these sharks."

Anderson explains that cookiecutter wounds in particular can tell scientists a lot about their migration habits.

“Cookiecutter wounds can tell us the white sharks get these marks during the 'offshore phase' off their migration as that is when they overlap habitat with cookiecutter sharks,” he explained.

And it's not just cookiecutter scars that can provide useful insight.

Anderson explained that scars from male sharks can also be seen, while wounds from boat propellers and rope burn marks also have very specific patterns.

"In many shark species, males must bite the female in order to hold on while copulating,” he added.

“It is a line of evidence and a piece of the puzzle to try and determine where and when white sharks are mating, as we still do not know for sure."

Meanwhile, parallel cuts can correspond to a boat propeller injury while a white burn mark can indicate that the shark has been tangled with fishing equipment.

The markings can tell the team a lot about great white sharks (Getty Stock Photo)

“It's another puzzle piece that tells a story of what these white sharks experience," said Anderson.

Great white sharks are usually associated with South Africa and Australia, however they can be found in coastal waters all over the planet.

According to The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the species as vulnerable to extinction, with numbers of the sharks on a downward trend.