A state official suspects a shark captured on video circling a boat off Kaena Point on Oahu is not a great white, but a large mako shark.

Randy Honebrink, a shark specialist with the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said he suspected the shark in the video could be a mako shark, and had his suspicion confirmed by Carl Meyer, a University of Hawaii researcher who works with sharks.

Honebrink said Meyer was able to point out distinguishing characteristics of the mako shark, such as the relative positions of the dorsal and pectoral fins. Meyer was not immediately available for comment.

"I do not think it’s a white. I think it’s a mako," said Honebrink, adding that the two are closely related. "Whites and makos look pretty similar."

Two fishermen captured the shark in a video that was posted on YouTube on Thursday. According to the video’s description, Dominick Gaballo and Addison Toki had just reeled in a 300-pound marlin when the shark swam up to the boat off Kaena Point.

In the roughly seven-minute video, the predator circles the boat with its dorsal fin above the water’s surface. One of the men says they are about five or six miles from shore and estimates the shark to be about 14 feet long and "fat." At one point he wonders aloud if it’s a mako shark.

Honebrink said mako sharks rarely interact with people because they are pelagic sharks that feed in the open ocean.

"It was probably a pretty good size for a mako," he said.

He added that it’s not unusual for a shark to circle a boat when it has fish on board.

He said if the shark in the video were a great white, it wouldn’t be unusual. Great whites come regularly to Hawaii, although not in large numbers. The sharks usually reside along the coast of California and sometimes travel to Hawaii after passing through a feeding ground between the West Coast and Hawaii.

He said one suspicion is that great whites visit the waters around the Hawaiian Islands during the winter months because humpback whales are calving there.