Great White Shark
The "king of the body of water" is a title that applies to any number of more interesting marine animals, depending on whom you talk to. But for many, the great white shark is the undisputed ruler of the seas.

Nifty white sharks instill both terror and awe in most of us. Averaging 15 feet in length and weighing up to 5,000 pounds, great white sharks are formidable creatures that are notorious for attacks on unwitting swimmers, although some experts will tell you that many of the attacks attributed to not bad whites are really perpetrated by the ambitious and feisty balderdash shark.

While great white sharks are feared by many, they're likewise highly revered animals. They accept some pretty incredible features that brand them one of the more than interesting shark species in the oceans.

A Toothy Beast

Great white shark teeth are favorite tourist souvenirs. Their top teeth are large and triangular in shape and are abrupt and serrated to assist them tear flesh abroad from their prey. Their bottom teeth are narrower and are used to hold the prey firmly while they chomp away.

Bully whites have upward to 300 teeth at whatever given time, situated in about 7 rows. When a molar is lost during a battle or while feeding, the tooth behind information technology moves up to replace information technology. Peachy whites lose and re-grow thousands of teeth over the course of their lives, which average nearly thirty years.

A Voracious Feeder

Humans eat near ane ton of food every twelvemonth. Nifty white sharks, by comparison, eat about 11 tons of nutrient annually, generally comprised of seals, ocean lions, small whales, dolphins, and ocean turtles. After a big meal, a great white shark can go three months without some other.

Peachy white sharks often have huge scratches and mean scars from battling with their casualty. When a smashing white shark attacks, it will scroll its eyeballs into the dorsum of its head to go along them from getting gouged out. Sharks don't actually chew their nutrient, but rather use their sharp teeth to rip their prey into chunks that they swallow whole.

I very surprising fact well-nigh bully white sharks is that they avoid fighting one some other over food. If one shark is feeding on a big whale and another shows up unexpectedly for dinner, the feeding shark volition happily share its take hold of. But if there'due south only enough for 1 and the visitor thinks he should be the one to eat, the sharks will engage in a tail-slapping competition, swimming past ane another and slapping their tails on the surface of the water. Whoever gets the most and biggest splashes in wins the casualty.

What's Non on the Neat White'due south Menu

Surprisingly, humans are non on the preferred menu of groovy white sharks. Almost attacks on humans by smashing whites happen out of marvel, and most are not fatal. The shark may see something shiny or colorful in the water – a watch, a bright, fluorescent swimsuit – and swim over to investigate. When this thing turns out to be fastened to a living creature, the shark thinks, "dinner!" and bumps and bites. In one case the shark realizes it's just bit into a human, it usually swims off. Sharks don't like human flesh, and they can't digest our bones very easily.

Six Abrupt Shark Senses

The corking white shark'south nostrils are on the underside of its snout, and they lead to the olfactory bulb. Great white sharks accept the largest olfactory seedling of all shark species, and they tin can detect a unmarried drop of blood in 25 gallons of water.

The retina of a great white shark is divided into two parts. 1 is adapted for daytime vision and the other is adapted to assist information technology see at nighttime.

The external ears are 2 fiddling openings that can sense tiny vibrations in the water, and the "ear stone" responds to gravity and so the shark knows when it's upside downward or right side up.

Corking white sharks accept a keen sense of taste thanks to their sensitive taste buds, which tell them whether what they've merely bitten into is edible.

Their sense of touch comes from their lateral line, which allows them to perceive even tiny vibrations in the water from as far away as 820 feet.

Possibly the most interesting feature of the great white shark is the ability to sense electrical fields. An organ called the "ampullae of Lorenzini" detects electric currents given off by prey, which helps them find food hidden in crevasses and under the sand on the ocean floor. Information technology also helps them navigate open water by post-obit the magnetic fields that crisscross over the earth's crust.

Great White Shark Pups

Sharks give nascence in one of three ways. Sharks that are oviparous lay a sac of eggs called a "mermaid's purse," which attaches itself to a rock or other hard surface to protect information technology until the pups hatch. Sharks that are viviparous give nativity to live sharks that develop in the womb.

Great white sharks are ovoviviparous, which is the best of both worlds. Eggs develop in the mother'due south torso, but she doesn't lay them. Instead, the eggs hatch inside, and she gives nascence to live shark pups, which are independent from birth and immediately swim off to notice food and to avert existence eaten past their female parent.

A Fearsome Predator'southward Most Fearsome Predator

Dandy white sharks have very few natural predators. The short list includes orcas and other, larger shark species. Nevertheless, they're listed every bit "vulnerable" on the IUCN Red Listing due to their most violent and formidable adversary: United states of america.

Humans are responsible for mass killings of dandy whites and other shark species, to the melody of between 100 and 273 one thousand thousand sharks every twelvemonth. Since great white sharks frequently swim close to the shore and live in shallow waters, they're an piece of cake target for commercial and sports fisherman. Their fins are harvested to sell in the Asian market for shark fin soup, a delicacy, and their skin is used to make fashion accessories. Their fatty liver oils are a common ingredient in cosmetics and other products.

Great white sharks may be the kings of the ocean now, simply they're on the verge of being labeled "endangered." Keeping the throne may well depend on human intervention through laws and other protective measures to ensure great white sharks are around for hereafter generations to both fear and revere.