W B The superorder of sharks is made up of the predators that cause the most fear in humans. There are 375 species of sharks in the world, many of which are surprising because of their large size.
#10 PACIFIC SLEEPER SHARK
It can reach up to 14.4 feet in length. It inhabits the Pacific Ocean, from the surface to more than a mile deep. The warmer the waters, the lower it inhabits. In some areas it remains in the dark depths during the day and emerges at night. It moves very slowly which allows it not to be detected by its prey. It feeds on octopus, fish and crustaceans that it sucks and crushes with its jaws. Because food may be scarce at the bottom of the ocean, it can store some in its stomach. In spite of being a shark, it is attacked by killer whales who only feed on their liver because the rest of their body is harmful to them. Poor baby!
#9 SHORTFIN MAKO SHARK
It is also known as “bonito shark”. It can reach up to 14.7 feet in length. It lives in all the oceans, except in the Arctic and Antarctic, since it is a warm water fish. It is usually found far from the coasts in-between the surface and 490 feet deep. It feeds on small fish, dolphins, swordfish and even small cetaceans that it attacks by biting them from below, often tearing pieces of their sides and fins. That’s cruel! It can swim at a speed of 61.6 feet per second and jump up to 29.5 feet above the water. It is quite aggressive, it has attacked people and there have been cases in which it jumped into boats, so even on a yacht, people are not safe from him.
#8 GIANT HAMMERHEAD SHARK
This species is characterized by its T-shaped head. Its eyes and nostrils are located at the ends of the head. In this way, by simply tilting, it can see what is located behind. Its back is gray or brown and its belly is white. Females are larger than males and can reach a length between 15.7 and 18 feet, although a 19.6 feet specimen has been found. It lives near the continental shelves and feeds on fish and crustaceans. It can detect a drop of blood almost a mile away. He’s practically a vampire! Hammerhead sharks are solitary in adulthood, but young ones travel in groups. They have a special predilection for eating rays, which they attack from above. The poisoned thorns do not affect them. Its reproduction is viviparous unlike its relatives of other species. Excessive hunting and the fact that it only breeds once every two years has made it an endangered species.
#7 TIGER SHARK
It gets its name from the series of dark stripes on their backs that tend to fade with age. The largest specimen found was 18.04 feet long. It inhabits tropical waters, especially in the central Pacific. It is a super predator that can gobble up anything, including objects made by humans, even a car plate has been found inside. It is considered one of the most dangerous species that, unlike the white shark, not only bites the human being but also eats it. Its thick teeth with the tip facing one of the sides have proved useful in breaking hard surfaces like turtle shells. For the tiger shark, breaking bones is nothing.
#6 MEGAMOUTH SHARK
It is also known as the wide mouth shark. It reaches up to 18.04 feet in length and its mouth measures 4.2 feet in width. It is a very rare species; newly discovered in 1976 in Hawaii. There’s not much information known about its characteristics because only 60 specimens have been seen in a period of 40 years. It has a huge mouth with several circular spots on the lower lip. It moves through the water with its mouth half open to capture crustaceans and small fish.
#5 GREENLAND SHARK
It is also called Greenland shark. It measures between 16 and 19.6 feet in length. It lives in the Arctic Ocean, on the coasts of Greenland and Iceland, although it has also been seen in Argentina and Antarctica. It can reach depths of below 1.2 miles. According to a study, each boreal shark has a life expectancy of up to 400 years, being the longest living vertebrates in the world. They live calm lives, they only grow 0.3 inches per year and reach sexual maturity at 150 years old. It is also known as the sleeping shark, due to its extreme slow pace and almost total blindness. In spite of that, it feeds on fish, squids, seals and walruses. It lives together with a 1.18-inch copepod crustacean called Ommatokoita elongata, which installs itself in its cornea and feeds on it, causing it to lose sight. Since the ommatokoite is a bioluminescent organism, meaning it shines, there is probably a symbiosis. In exchange for eating their eyes, the light of the crustacean attracts their prey. This would explain why the boreal shark eats fast-moving animals. In addition, it is endowed with a powerful nose that allows it to track its food miles away, especially land animals that get trapped under the ice sheets. What a wise old man!
#4 BLUNTNOSE SIXGILL SHARK
It measures 15.7 feet in length and weighs a ton, although specimens of almost 23 feet have been spotted. It lives in the warm and tempered depths found between 590 and 3600 feet. It is also called the shark of the six gills, which indicates that it is a very primitive species because modern sharks have only five gills. According to scientists, this species exists since the Jurassic period. It feeds on fish and crustaceans, although it can also be a scavenger. It has a row of sharp teeth in its upper jaw and deadly six-pointed teeth in the lower jaw that hurt just taking a glance at them.
#3 GREAT WHITE SHARK
The most feared of all sharks can reach up to 24.6 feet in length and while there are some testimonies of people who claim to have seen larger specimens, they have not been confirmed. Its bite is 300 times stronger than that of a human jaw. Its teeth are shaped like an arrowhead and serrated edges that are continuously replaced. Behind each tooth there are two or three lines growing. It has amazing nerves in the face that allow it to detect changes in the water movement and its formidable sense of smell alerts it to the presence of blood molecules miles away. Its skin its belly is white and it’s bluish gray on the back, which serves as camouflage. Seen from above it is confused with the dark waters and seen from below it is camouflaged with the clarity of the sunlight. It inhabits the continental shelf of warm seas where there is greater abundance of food. It does not usually approach the coast unless it detects the presence of seals or penguins. It practices ambush hunting. Usually it places itself under its prey and attacks at full speed biting the belly and shaking its head to extract the greater amount of meat. If the victim is small, it kills them instantly and devours them in one bite. If it is large, it rips a piece from the abdomen and then returns to continue biting. Definitely nobody wants to be on their way.
#2 BASKING SHARK
With 32.8 feet in length it is positioned as the second largest fish in the world. It weighs 4 tons, the equivalent of six and a half Holstein cows. They live in cold waters between 46 and 57 degrees Fahrenheit and plankton is their main food. It feeds by filtering the water through its gills, which are huge and almost surround its head completely. That’s why he is usually seen swimming slowly with its mouth open. Its sense of smell helps guide it to the areas with the most food. In general, they swim in groups of three or four and are quite friendly with humans, which has facilitated their indiscriminate hunting. From each dead basking shark one ton of meat and 400 liters of oil can be extracted.
#1 WHALE SHARK
It is the largest species of shark. It measures 39.3 feet in length, although several untested testimonies claim to have seen specimens of just over 59 feet. It inhabits warm oceans less than 2290 feet deep. The largest group inhabits the Philippine Islands. Its belly is white and its back is gray with white dots and stripes that form a unique design in each individual, like a giant fingerprint. It is somewhat slow, reaching the modest speed of 3.1 miles per hour. Its mouth measures 4.9 feet and is fed by a water filtration mechanism sucking up to 1.7 liters per second. Once full, the shark closes its mouth and expels the liquid through its gills. Everything that measures more than 0.07 or 0.11 inches is trapped and engulfed. Sometimes, it even coughs to remove food debris from its gills. It is a very old species that has inhabited the planet for 60 million years and has a life expectancy of 100 years. Despite its size, it poses no danger to humans and is quite friendly. That is a good shark.
Before finishing the top, it’s time to make an honorable mention in memory of the largest shark in history: the megalodon. It measured 65.6 feet in length, 22.9 in height and lived 2.6 million years ago. He fed on cetaceans and his teeth measured 7.08 inches tall. The strength of his bite was ten times more powerful than that of the white shark. Unfortunately, it was extinguished when the waters of the oceans cooled and the cetaceans migrated to the poles. Because of the lack of food, the members of the species began to eat their own offspring causing their disappearance.
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