There are at least 300 species of sharks that roam the waters of the earth.  Some are only a foot long.  Other sharks grow forty feet or more.  There are fast sharks and slow ones.  For all that we know about sharks, there remains much that we do not know.  In some form, sharks have been around for about 400 million years.  Even before dinosaurs roamed the earth, sharks hunted through the oceans.

Sharks have the most powerful jaws on the planet. Unlike most animals’ jaws, both the sharks upper and lower jaws move. Each type of shark has a different shaped tooth depending on their diet. A shark may grow and use over 20,000 teeth in its lifetime! Sharks never run out of teeth.  If one is lost, another spins forward from the rows and rows of backup teeth.

Almost all sharks are “carnivores” or meat eaters.  They live on a diet of fish and sea mammals (like dolphins and seals) and even such prey as turtles and seagulls. Their skeleton is made of cartil age instead of bone, which allows greater flexibility. One of the reasons that sharks are such successful predators is that they have such super senses. They are able to feel vibrations in the water using a line of canals that go from its head to its tail. The white shark is the largest predatory shark. It is also the most recognized, feared and admired of the sharks.