Shark! For many, their size, power, and great, mouthwatering jaws fill us with fear and fascination. Not for me, I’m bewitched by them. Sharks kill only a few people each year, but media coverage and movie representation of attacks have marked sharks as voracious killing machines. Our fears—and appetites—fuel an industry that hunts more than 100 million sharks each year and threatens to purge these vital predators from the oceans.
The shark is an enchanting creature, over 400 different swim in the ocean today. Too many, sharks symbolize the terrible essence of ruthlessness, representing the ultimate savages of the seas. Although many folks would rather not deliberately socialize with these fearsome predators of the depths, I appreciate swimming among sharks. Sharks in addition to their direct predecessors are swimming within the world's oceans for well over three hundred million years, and were going about their business long before dinosaurs walked the world. The fact that sharks have survived thus far without changing very much is a long real tribute to the effectiveness of their anatomy.
Sharks are fishes, confined within the taxonomic class called Chondrichthyes (meaning "cartilage-fish"). Sharks besides other cartilaginous fishes (rays, skates, and rat fishes) differ from the skeletal fishes because sharks have a cartilaginous skeleton, and lack a swim bladder. Worldwide there are over six hundred different types of fish, not to mention three hundred species of sharks.
From time to time sharks are referred to as primitive creatures. They are a prehistoric group of animals, so assuming sharks are primitive is correct. Unfortunately, this assumption is wrong. Recent offshore studies have shown that sharks are, in fact, extrem...
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...ba diving, I read countless articles about sharks, monitor shark tracking’s and even watch shark films.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about sharks; some people have been mistaken as a source of food while others simply don’t like sharks. For the sharks sense of not knowing these marvelous creatures have been and continue to be brutally punished for trying to live. Sharks have been on this earth longer than any human has and still to this day they remain helpful in cleaning up our ecosystem.
I hope that the information contained in this essay inspires curiosity about sharks and awakens respect and care for one of the magnificent, most ancient creatures of an ever-evolving sea.
Works Cited
"About Shark Savers." Shark Savers. WildAid, n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
"Oceanic Research Group." Oceanic Research Group. Blue World, 7 Sept. 2013. Web. 30 Mar. 2014.
Mojetta wrote about prehistoric sharks, and the history of these creatures. According to Angelo Mojetta, author of Sharks, Cladoselache genus, one of the first prehistoric sharks, was buried in sediment that kept it preserved. Unlike other sharks, Cladoselache genus had a circle of tiny plates around it’s eyes for protection against it’s victim’s attempts to fight back. These sharks lived over 400 million years ago. Sharks of the past could mostly be identified by their teeth, because shark’s bodies are made of cartilage. Another shark that was focused on was called, Stethacanthus. This shark had a very unique look. Stethacanthus had a brush like decoration on the top of it’s head, and an extra fin like part that had the same bristle like decorations on it. These characteristics were thought to be used as suction cups, to hitch rides from larger fish. One of the most famous sharks that looks like an over...
The Carcharhinus leucas commonly called the "bull shark" is a very unique shark. The bull shark can live in both salt water and fresh water but is commonly found along the Mississippi River and around Nicaragua. The bull sharks has a very blunt rounded nose giving it a bullish type of appearance thus giving it the name bull shark. The sharks are a dark black to a light grey with a white underbelly. Bull sharks can grow to be about 350 cm long and weigh around 230 kilograms. Bull sharks also tend to have smaller eyes compared to many other sharks which indicates that the bull sharks have limited vision. The bull sharks have triangular teeth like the great white shark (one of the bull sharks cousins). The bulls teeth are heavily serrated and are about 1.5 inches long which makes it easy to tear apart the flesh of their prey.
This image is what a majority of people believe to be the shark. They believe it to be the bloodthirsty sea monster that appears in countless works of literature and films, but science says otherwise. The classic picture painted by the minds of sailors returning from years at sea come from imagination and sharks’ violent methods of hunting and mating. Sharks fear humans as much as humans fear sharks, and most sharks, particularly the “man-eating” great whites, only bite humans because they mistake surfers for seals. In earlier times, the ocean was a source of mystery and adventur...
Sharks have also been subjected to medical research, games and competitions, jewellery, souvenirs and cosmetics. We need to take into consideration that sharks play a vital role in the natural world that we live in. it is imperative that we look after these majestic creatures and ensure they remain protected. We need to be aware of the dangers of sharks, swim in protected areas where there are shark nets, and do not swim after dark in the sea (especially not alone) as the sea is the sharks home. Humans should also be wearing wet suits as protection in the ocean. The sea is where they live, they swim freely and they eat – they do not particularly target humans but rather prey on food that is available to them in their habitat.
Shark slaughter has led to shark populations being rapidly decimated all around the globe. Fishermen report that sharks are also getting smaller because they are not being given enough time to fully mature. Although there are other fish that are targeted more than sharks, they are not exactly affected by the kind of endangerment that sharks are currently experiencin...
On the contrary, this belief is completely false. A shark 's fin is composed of cartilage. This is the same cartilage that can be found in humans, and it has no medicinal benefits whatsoever. The fact that the shark 's fin lacks any real use in medicine only amplifies the disgrace that the practice of shark finning is.
Great white Sharks are unique beautiful creatures of the ocean. Sharks have survived in the ocean for 450 million years. The scientific name for Great whites is
"Home - Shark Research Institute." Shark Research Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Jan. 2014. .
Thesis: Sharks should be conserved because they are an important part of the ocean, attacks are often incidental, and human behavior influences the behavior of sharks.
Sharks appear to be very vicious creatures that will eat or kill anything in its path. People think that all sharks are harmful and deadly to humans. However, research shows that this statement is not true. Sharks can be trained and tamed. They are just like big, aquatic dogs. Only about 2 dozen types of sharks are potentially harmful to humans. Shark attacks are also much more uncommon than one may think. Despite their fearsome appearances, sharks are not as vicious as they look.
Great white sharks are the main predators in the ocean. The only things that are responsible for the deaths of sharks are Age, Health, Humans and other sharks. Humans are responsible for 70% of deaths for great white sharks. Today there are more than 440 known species of sharks. Great whites only have 2-12 babies at one time unlike others who have hundreds. Great whites can live up to 60 years old! Great white sharks are phenomenal animals and but still are vulnerable to extinction. Do your part to kill of the rest of them before they kill you!
Most people think that sharks are large, fast-swimmers, and savage predators. This is true of some species and groups should be interested of the appealing aspects of biology found within it: all sharks have an excellent sense of smell; some can detect electrical discharges; some sharks give birth to one of the
When most people think about sharks, they probably picture something like this. A big, horrifying shark, with many sharp teeth longing for the human flesh. They are scary, dangerous and killing machines. But it isn’t the truth. In fact, this is a fake.
The morphology of whale sharks is mostly similar to aquatic fish species, but many specific traits help differentiate them from the rest. Whale sharks are the largest fish in the world and can reach a size of around 20 meters (Martins, C., and C. Knickle). This is often compared to the size of a school bus. The shark has a very large transverse mouth. They have 5 very large gill slits and have a larger first dorsal fin compared to the second one (Whale Shark). They have a distinctive spotted “checkerboard” pattern with stripes (Martins, C., and C. Knickle). It is not exactly known why they have this specific body marking. It is believed that the body markings act as a camouflage. The strange thing about whale sharks is that they have 300 rows of teeth that play no role in feeding (Martins, C., and C. Knickle).
One particularly interesting sea creature is the whale shark, formally known as Rhincondon typus it was first discovered in 1828 by Andrew Smith (Rowat 2012). This large fish is found globally in warm tropical oceans and prefers to stay within 200 meters of the ocean’s surface in waters ranging from 4.2 to 28.7 degrees Celsius (Stevens 2006). This creature can be found all across the globe in any warm tropical seas. Aggregations of whale sharks have been seen off the coast of Australia at times, although it is primarily a creature of solitude. Whale sharks are filter feeders that consume plankton as well as small fish and are harmless to humans. The whale shark is a species with a fascinating ecology, life history, behavior, anatomy