Great white shark: photo and description. White shark (lat.

The second article in the “Summer with Sharks” series talks about the famous representative of giant sea predators– a great white shark, memorable to many   based on the film"Jaws" Is this huge fish as dangerous and bloodthirsty as is commonly believed?

An encounter with a great white shark in the ocean is somehow not like what one imagines: the fish does not at all look like a bloodthirsty monster, which is talked about in thousands of television programs with chilling intonations in the voice. She is very plump - she looks like a fat sausage - with a mouth that seems to be slightly open in a smug grin, with quivering flabby jowls. In a word, if you look from the side, one of the most dangerous predators on the planet resembles a blue-faced clown. And only when the “clown” turns to face you, so to speak, do you understand why this predator causes such fear - and they fear it almost more than any other animal on the planet. The shark's muzzle no longer seems flabby - it narrows into an ominous battering ram with black, unblinking eyes. The grin disappears, and all you see are rows of five-centimeter teeth protruding from the jaws (when biting, they create a force of 1800 kilograms per square centimeter). The shark is slowly but surely approaching you. Turns his head - first in one direction, then in the other, assessing whether the prey, that is, you, is worthy of spending time on it. Then, if you're lucky, she'll turn around, turning back into a clown, and lazily disappear into the underwater darkness. There are more than 500 species of sharks in the world's oceans, but in the minds of the vast majority of people there is only one. When the Pixar film company needed a villain for the cartoon Finding Nemo, it chose not a harmless nurse shark or an aggressive blunt-nosed shark for this role, or even a tiger shark, which would have looked more at home on the coral reef where Nemo lives. No, it was the great white shark that was grinning from thousands of posters around the world. This fish is a symbol of the World Ocean, but our knowledge about it is very meager - and much of what we seem to know is simply not true. White sharks are not killers blinded by bloodlust (on the contrary, they act carefully when attacking prey), they do not always live alone and are probably smarter than scientists until recently believed. Even the famous series of attacks off the coast of New Jersey in 1916, mentioned in the movie Jaws, may have been the work of a blunt-nosed shark rather than a great white shark. We don't know for sure what her life expectancy is, how many months she carries her offspring, and when she reaches puberty. No one has ever seen great white sharks mate. or produce offspring. We don’t really know how many there are and where they spend most of their lives. If a predator the size of a small truck lived on land in California, South Africa or Australia, experts would observe representatives of this species in zoos or research centers and study its mating behavior, migration routes, and habits in great detail. But underwater there are laws. White sharks appear and disappear as they please, and follow them into depths of the sea almost impossible. They do not want to live in aquariums - some refuse to eat and die of hunger, others attack all their neighbors and smash their heads against the walls. And yet scientists using modern technologies, may already be close to answering two of the most exciting questions: how many great white sharks are there and where they are hiding. This is necessary to know in order to decide how to protect ourselves from white sharks and how to protect them from us, and to understand what the most deserves more. scary predator on the planet - fear or pity.

Brian Skerry A large white shark tears open the surface of the water near the Neptune Islands. Scientists distinguish sharks by their dorsal fins, scars and a jagged line separating the white ventral and gray dorsal parts of the body.

A seven-meter fishing boat bobs in the waves off the southern tip of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It's a beautiful summer day. The passengers - three scientists, two paying tourists, a couple of journalists and the captain - sat comfortably on the seats, looking towards the island of Nantucket. Suddenly the radio comes to life, and the voice of the observation pilot from a height of 300 meters says in a sharp New England accent: “There’s a great shark just south of you!” Marine biologist Greg Skomal perks up. He stands on a bridge fenced with railings, protruding one and a half meters ahead of the bow of the boat and similar to the board on which pirates pushed those sentenced to death into the sea. If we were in a Hollywood movie, Greg would have a wooden leg and be holding a harpoon. But instead of a harpoon, Greg holds a three-meter pole with a GoPro camera attached to the end. And he beams with joy when the captain starts the engine. Until 2004, virtually no one had seen great white sharks offshore. East Coast USA. From time to time, individual individuals appeared near the beaches or got caught in nets, but this happened very rarely. In general, white sharks gather in certain time years in five areas, which scientists call “hubs”, by analogy with hub airports. The three main hubs are located off the coast of California and Mexican Baja California, the southern coast of South Africa and Australia, where these predators hunt seals. However, the East Coast is not that place: there are not enough seals here. The sharks that swam here were homeless strays. In 2004, one female made her way into the bays near the village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts. For Skomal, who by that time had been successfully tagging other shark species with electronic beacons for twenty years, this was a rare chance: a great white came, one might say, right into his yard! “I thought it was an accident that would never happen again,” he says, a smile playing across his face, framed by tousled gray hair. Over the next two weeks, Skomal and his colleagues followed the shark, which they named Gretel, after the lost girl in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, and eventually equipped it with a beacon. Scientists hoped to track the shark's movements in the Atlantic Ocean, but after 45 minutes Gretel's beacon fell off. “My excitement turned to deep despondency, because I was sure that I had missed a once-in-a-lifetime chance to learn something new about the great white shark,” Skomal recalls. Over the next few years, he thought a lot about Gretel and whether she really was a loner. But in September 2009, fortunately, everything became clear: five great white sharks were spotted from an airplane near the cape. Within a week, Skomal had tagged them all. “I almost went crazy with joy. My heart was beating so hard that it was ready to jump out of my chest. Everything I dreamed of has come true!” Greg says. Since then, great white sharks have returned here every summer. Some scientists have even called Cape Cod a sixth hub. How many sharks are there? To answer this question, let’s look at data from the California hub. The first attempt to count sharks here was in the mid-1980s by Scott Anderson, who at that time was studying seabirds on an island located west of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Anderson and his colleagues tracked the sharks - first visually, then using acoustic beacons and finally using satellites. Over the past 30 years, they have processed data from thousands of observations of individual sharks, which were distinguished by the shape of their dorsal fins, markings on their skin or the characteristic border between their gray back and white belly. It is now known where these sharks gather and what they eat (most of the “observations” returned here from year to year). So, based on such observations, is it possible to determine the number of sharks? In 2011, a group of scientists tried to make such a calculation, and it turned out that only 219 adult sharks live in the Californian waters that are richest in sharks. Even taking into account that the number of predators at the top of the food pyramid is usually much smaller than the number of animals they hunt, this is still negligible. The results of the study stunned the public and were immediately criticized by other experts.

Brian Skerry Biologist Greg Skomal tries to take video of a shark swimming near Cape Cod. IN lately great white sharks have begun to appear regularly in the waters off a popular beach.

Of course, counting the number of great white sharks is much more difficult than land animals or even marine mammals. Therefore, scientists draw conclusions based on their assumptions about the routes of movement of sharks. In the case of the California coast, the most important assumption was that data from a few feeding sites were generalized to the entire hub. Another group of scientists processed the same data, taking into account other assumptions, and their number of sharks turned out to be ten times larger (although they also counted juveniles). Soon, ichthyologists began counting sharks in other hubs. For example, the population size of South African sharks was estimated at 900 individuals. How big or small are these numbers? Are great white sharks thriving or going extinct? There are about 4 thousand tigers and 25 thousand African lions in the world. Based on the lowest estimates, there are as many great white sharks on the planet as there are tigers, and they are known to be an endangered species. If we take the highest estimates, then these fish are no less numerous than lions - a vulnerable species. Some experts believe that sharks are dying out, while others, on the contrary, see positive changes. Some say that the increase in seal numbers indicates that there are almost no great white sharks left, while others argue that the more seals there are, the more sharks there must be. For example, Australian statistician Aaron McNeil believes that the appearance of sharks off the Cape Cod Peninsula and the increasing frequency of encounters with them in Southern Hemisphere support an optimistic point of view. “Over the last decade, I don’t see any evidence that there are fewer sharks,” says McNeil. – There was a period of decline in numbers in the past, but today it cannot be said that great white sharks are becoming extinct. Their numbers may be very slow, but they are growing.” Hope remains. Nowadays, if anyone intentionally catches great white sharks, it is very few fishermen - but the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species lists this species as the second most strictly protected category, since fishermen sometimes catch these fish unintentionally. After all, if the number of a species is small, even an accidental catch can deal a crushing blow to its populations - and the great white shark, being a top predator, plays a vital role in the ecology of the oceans. To understand whether great white sharks need our protection, it is necessary to know not only their numbers, but also where they wander. Their migration paths are not as orderly as, say, birds or butterflies. Some sharks follow along the coast, others tack hundreds of kilometers into the open sea. Many white sharks, depending on the time of year, change warm waters to cold ones and vice versa. And males, females and juveniles seem to follow different paths. Today, with long-term satellite beacons, scientists are finally beginning to understand these intricacies. We now know that adult white sharks in California and Mexico are leaving coastal zone in late autumn and go deep into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. "It's not at all clear why they go to this area, which some call an ocean desert," says Salvador Jorgensen, a biologist who studies the migration and ecology of great white sharks. “What the hell did they forget there?” Is this the “shark center” where great white sharks mate in a way that no one has ever seen? The water area about which we're talking about, the size of California, and the depths there reach kilometers, making it difficult to observe sharks. However, satellite beacon data show that females follow direct routes, while males surface and submerge, probably in search of mates.

This is how an idea of the life of great white sharks of the California coast is gradually formed. After spending the summer and fall hunting seals, they head to the ocean depths to begin breeding. At this time they live off accumulated fat reserves. Then the males return to the coast, and the females swim off to who knows where for a year or so, perhaps to give birth to offspring. The cubs are later shown at feeding grounds (for example, off the coast of Southern California), where they eat fish before they grow large enough to join the older cubs. It's not a complete picture—males and females don't spend much time together, and we don't know where the babies are born—but it explains a lot. For example, as the population recovers, more young are born, which may be why there have been a lot of shark sightings in Southern California lately. In other places, calculations are more difficult to make. Australian sharks feed off the southern coast of the mainland, but they do not seem to have their own “center”. As for the Atlantic, our knowledge here is even poorer. “We have rogues and we have coastal sharks. And I have no idea what motivates both,” says Greg Skomal. On a clear August morning, I board a two-seater plane with Wayne Davis, a pilot who spent years tracking tuna and swordfish for fishermen and now helps scientists search for great white sharks. It's so shallow here that sharks can be seen from the air. In just half an hour of flight we see seven - all of them patrol areas of the coast near which gray seals feed. On the way back, one and a half kilometers to the north, we fly over beaches crowded with vacationers. So far, local residents are welcoming to their new neighbors. Stores sell toy sharks, T-shirts and posters featuring them, even a new local mascot high school- great white shark. Sharks are usually depicted in profile – smiling, looking like clowns. But sooner or later, someone will encounter another version of the great white shark in these waters - the one with teeth. However, these predators make attempts on human life extremely rarely. In California, the likelihood of a surfer being bitten by a great white shark is one in 17 million, according to Stanford University, and even less for people just swimming in the water—one attack per 738 million vacationers. Will we be able to lend a helping hand to this toothy monster, are we ready to take pity on the ruthless monster?

intermediate ranks

International scientific name

Carcharodon carcharias Linnaeus,

Area Security status

Taxonomy
on Wikispecies

Images
on Wikimedia Commons

ITIS
NCBI
EOL

Taxonomy and origin

Much remains unclear about the evolutionary relationships of the white shark and other living and extinct species of herring sharks. The ancestor of this group was probably Isurolamna inflata, which lived approximately 65 - 55 million years ago and had small narrow teeth with a smooth edge and two lateral denticles. In this family, there is a tendency towards enlargement, broadening and serration of teeth during evolution (the transition from a grasping function to cutting and tearing), which led to the characteristic appearance of the teeth of the modern white shark.

Distribution and habitats

Area

The white shark lives throughout the ocean, preferring areas of the temperate coastline, continental and island shelves, usually closer to the surface of the water. Some large specimens also appear in tropical waters. It also sometimes makes spontaneous movements to the area of cold seas - the species has been recorded off the coast of Canada and Alaska. Large individuals are capable of regularly making long ocean voyages. It can also be located at a decent depth - a case was recorded of catching a white shark at 1280 meters using bottom fishing gear along with a sixgill shark. Observations show that at least large individuals tolerate a fairly wide range of temperatures environment- from cold seas and the ocean floor to the tropical coast. At the same time, smaller individuals (less than 3 m) are more common in temperate latitudes.

Habitat areas

The main centers of white shark aggregation are coastal waters American California and Mexican Baja California, Australia and New Zealand, the Republic of South Africa and, once, the Mediterranean. It can be found in the East Coast of the USA, off the coast of Cuba, the Bahamas, Argentina, Brazil; in the Eastern Atlantic - from France to South Africa; in the Indian Ocean appears in the Red Sea, off the coast of Seychelles, as well as off Reunion Island and in the waters of Mauritius; in the Pacific Ocean - from the Far East to New Zealand and the west coast of America.

Migrations

Anatomy and appearance

The white shark has a strong, large, conical head. The width in the upper lobe and in the lower lobe (at the tail) is the same (as in most herring sharks). The white shark has a protective coloration: it is white on the underside and gray on the back (sometimes with a brown or blue tint), giving the impression of mottled coloring, which makes the shark difficult to spot because its body visually breaks up when viewed from the side. When viewed from above, the dark shadow dissolves into the thickness of the sea, and when viewed from below, the silhouette of the shark is barely noticeable against the background of light. White sharks, like many others, have three rows of teeth. The teeth are serrated, and when the shark bites and shakes its head from side to side, the teeth cut and tear off pieces of flesh like a saw.

Dimensions

The size of a typical adult white shark is 5-6 meters with a mass of 600-3000 kg. Females are usually larger than males. The maximum size of a white shark is a hotly debated topic. Richard Ellis and John E. McCosker, recognized scientific experts on sharks, devote an entire chapter to this issue in their book The Great White Shark (1991), in which they analyze various reports of maximum sizes.

For several decades, many works of ichthyology, as well as the Book of Records, cited two specimens as the largest: a 6.9 m long shark caught in southern Australian waters near Port Fairy in the 1870s, and a 7.3 m long shark. caught in a herring trap at a dam in New Brunswick, Canada in 1930. Reports of the capture of specimens measuring 7.5 meters in length were common, but the above sizes remained a record.

Some researchers have questioned the validity of the measurements in both cases, since these results were significantly larger than any other results obtained through precise measurements. The New Brunswick shark may have been a basking shark rather than a great white, as both sharks have a similar body shape. The question of the size of the Port Fairy shark was clarified in the 1970s when G.I. I. Reynolds examined the shark's mouth and found that the Port Fairy shark was about 5 meters in length. He suggested that an error had been made in the original measurement in 1870.

Ellis and McCosker estimated the largest specimen that has been reliably measured to be 6.4 meters in length, which was caught in Cuban waters in 1945. However, even in this case, there are experts who argue that the shark was actually several feet shorter. The unconfirmed weight of this Cuban shark is 3270 kg.

Nutrition

Young sharks feed on small fish, tuna. Grown-up sharks switch to feeding on seals and do not shy away from the carcasses of dead whales. Their light coloration makes them less noticeable against the background of underwater rocks when they are stalking prey. Their high body temperature makes them faster and smarter than most sharks, which is essential when hunting seals. Fatty foods are needed to maintain a high temperature. The blood vessels that send blood to the skin transfer heat to the blood vessels that send blood to the skin. reverse side to reduce heat loss. The white shark first attacks seals horizontally, like fish, but then changes its habit and attacks from below so that the prey does not notice it until the last moment. Sometimes a shark mistakes people for seals and attacks, but when they feel bones in their teeth instead of seal fat, they let them go. And since these predators usually swim in a school, there may be several bites. When attacking, it rolls its eyes to protect them from the claws of its victims.

Reproduction

Notes

Reshetnikov Yu. S., Kotlyar A. N., Rass T. S., Shatunovsky M. I. Five-language dictionary of animal names. Fish. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / under the general editorship of academician. V. E. Sokolova. - M.: Rus. lang., 1989. - P. 23. - 12,500 copies. - ISBN 5-200-00237-0
Great White Sharks are now more endangered than tigers with just 3,500 left in the oceans | Mail Online
Carol Martins & Craig Knickle WHITE SHARK (English) . Education. Florida Museum of Natural History. Archived from the original on February 27, 2012. Retrieved October 8, 2011.
Jim Bourdon Carcharodon (English). The Life and Times of Long Dead Sharks(2009). Archived from the original on June 5, 2012. Retrieved May 12, 2012.
R. Aidan Martin Fossil History of the White Shark (English). ReefQuest Center for Shark Research. Archived from the original on February 27, 2012. Retrieved October 10, 2011.
Compagno L.J.V. Part 2 - Carcharhiniformes // Sharks of the world. An annotated and illustrated catalog of shark species known to date / Pere Oliver. - Rome: FAO, 2001. - Vol. 2. Bullhead, mackerel and carpet sharks (Heterodontiformes, Lamniformes and Orectolobiformes). - P. 100-107. - 269 p. - (FAO Species Catalog for Fishery Purposes). - ISBN 92-5-104543-7
Ramón Bonfil; Michael Meÿer, Michael C. Scholl, Ryan Johnson, Shannon O'Brien, Herman Oosthuizen, Stephan Swanson, Deon Kotze and Michael Paterson2 Transoceanic Migration, Spatial Dynamics, and Population Linkages of White Sharks. Science Magazine. AAAS (7 October 2005).

From this article you will learn how long do sharks live. Sharks are one of the most interesting ocean representatives. They have inhabited the depths of the sea for more than five hundred (500) million years.

Instant reply: currently there are about one hundred ( 100 ) shark species. Various representatives These creatures differ in life expectancy. Long-lived sharks can live over 80 years(for example, a whale shark).

How long do sharks live - in detail by species

Sharks are ancient representatives of our planet. The fact is that these animals inhabited the Earth more than 450 million years ago. Some varieties have hardly changed over such a huge period of existence.

Centenarians- polar sharks. Their age can exceed one hundred years, and according to scientific research - even 200. This is due to an incredibly weak metabolism. Researchers believe that this is one of the longest-living animals on our planet to date.

Lifespan of a whale shark - up to 75 years.

The lifespan of a basking shark is approximately 50 years.

The white shark lives much shorter - up to 30 years.

Very rare species- a largemouth shark can survive up to 50 years, and its long-livers are up to one hundred years. But this cannot be confirmed in any way, since since its discovery in 1976, only a couple of dozen representatives of this species have been identified.

Life expectancy is enormous hammerhead shark sometimes it can be about 50 years.

The Mako shark is one of the most hot-tempered and evil species sharks Its maximum lifespan may be slightly longer 30 years for females and slightly less for males.

How long do sharks live - Polar

Not long ago, ichthyologists noticed amazing feature, according to which those that live in colder water live longer among sharks.

This applies specifically to polar sharks. They believe that for them the indicator is hundred years is not the limit at all, and such representatives of sharks are able to live longer. Exactly how many is not yet clear due to the difficulty of identifying ages.

Arctic sharks have an incredibly slow metabolism, they seem to live in a dream, which is why they are called sleepy sharks.

Second position occupied by large species of sharks, which is natural, because for all living things one can notice this law: larger types live longer than small ones. They need more time to grow. In the tropics, the average lifespan of sharks is up to 30 years, and in middle latitudes - up to 45 years old.

How long do white sharks live?

Researchers recently concluded that white sharks can live much longer than previously thought. Using the latest technology to clearly determine the age of shark tissue, researchers were able to identify a male white shark that lived up to 70 years old.

According to scientists, such a discovery is incredibly important for animal protection, since data on the lifespan of the type, the speed of its development and the time it reaches puberty will help create programs for the conservation of the species.

Previously, researchers tried to determine the age of a predator by counting growth rings in tissue (for example, in a vertebra). But the shark skeleton contains cartilage, and the division between the rings is difficult to discern even with a microscope.

Currently, researchers have been fortunate to identify a radioactive marker in certain rings.

This marker is an isotope that fell into the ocean simultaneously with sediment after testing atomic bomb in the 60s. It settled in the tissues of animals that lived at that time.

The researchers used traces of radioactive carbon in the form of some kind of stamp, with which they can calculate and calibrate the tissue layers in order to then more accurately determine the age of the samples obtained.

Past considerations of animal remains from the Indian and Pacific Oceans led researchers to believe that white sharks live for about 30 years.

But the radioactive marker significantly increased this indicator: the largest male lived 73 years old, and the female − 42 . All animals lived in the Atlantic Ocean, but scientists do not believe that there is any significant difference in the life expectancy of sharks from other oceans.

If the hypothesis that the average lifespan of a white shark is 70 years, will be confirmed, it will be possible to call this species one of the most long-lived types of cartilaginous fish. But at the same time, the white shark is one of the most vulnerable inhabitants of nature, since it is one of the main hunting items.

And if sexual maturity in such sharks occurs very slowly, then it will be quite difficult for them to restore their numbers after any significant damage.

In addition, as scientists have already learned, white sharks are far from the most prolific of the great variety of cartilaginous fish - the female is capable of producing only a couple of cubs in the litter(researchers still have not figured out how many times a female white shark can give birth during her life).

I hope you liked this article - How long do sharks live?, from the section - , personally, after editing, I read it instantly. If you have something to say, write in the comments.

Original taken from masterok in Flight of the Great White Shark

What have we already read about sharks:

Now let's study probably the most famous and bloodthirsty shark.

Great white shark (lat. Carcharodon carcharias)- also known as the white shark, white death, man-eating shark, carcharodon is an exceptionally large predatory fish found in the surface coastal waters of all the Earth's oceans except the Arctic.

This predator owes its name to white color abdominal part of the body, with a broken border on the sides separated from the dark back. Reaching a length of over 7 meters and a mass of over 3,000 kg, the great white shark is the largest living predatory fish(excluding plankton-eating whale and basking sharks).

In addition to its very large size, the great white shark has also acquired sad famous fame a merciless cannibal due to numerous attacks on swimmers, divers and surfers. A person has much less chance of surviving an attack by a man-eating shark than under the wheels of a truck. A powerful moving body, a huge mouth armed with sharp teeth and a passion for satisfying the hunger of this predator will leave the victim no hope of salvation if the shark is determined to profit from human flesh.

The great white shark is the only surviving species of its genus Carcharodon.
It is on the verge of extinction - there are only about 3,500 specimens left on Earth.

The first scientific name, Squalus carcharias, was given to the great white shark by Carl Linnaeus in 1758.
Zoologist E. Smith in 1833 assigned the generic name Carcharodon (Greek karcharos sharp + Greek odous - tooth). The final modern scientific name of the species came into being in 1873, when the Linnaean species name was combined with the genus name under one term, Carcharodon carcharias.

The great white belongs to the herring shark family (Lamnidae), which includes four other species of marine predators: the mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus), the longfin mako shark (Longfin mako), the Pacific salmon shark (Lamna ditropis) and the Atlantic herring shark (Lamna nasus).

The similarity in the structure and shape of the teeth, as well as the large size of the great white shark and prehistoric megalodon became the reason that most scientists considered them closely related species. This assumption is reflected in the scientific name of the latter - Carcharodon megalodon.

Currently, some scientists have expressed doubts about the close relationship of Carcharadon and Megalodon, considering them to be distant relatives belonging to the family of herring sharks, but not so closely related. Recent research suggests that the white shark is closer to the mako shark than to the megalodon. According to the theory put forward, the true ancestor of the great white shark is Isurus hastalis, while megalodons are directly related to sharks of the species Carcharocle. According to the same theory, Otodus obliquus is considered a representative of the ancient extinct branch of Carcharocles megalodon olnius.

Fossil tooth

The great white shark lives throughout the world in coastal waters of the continental shelf, the temperature of which ranges from 12 to 24 degrees Celsius. In colder waters, great white sharks are almost never found. They also do not live in desalinated and slightly salted seas. For example, they were not found in our Black Sea, which is too fresh for them. In addition, there is not enough food in the Black Sea for such a large predator as the great white shark.

The habitat of the great white shark covers many coastal waters of the warm and temperate seas of the World Ocean. The above map shows that it can be found anywhere in the middle ocean belt of the planet, except, of course, the Arctic Ocean.

In the south they are not found further than the southern coast of Australia and the coast of South Africa. Great white sharks are most likely to be found off the coast of California, near the Mexican island of Guadalupe. Individual populations live in the central part of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas (Italy, Croatia), off the coast of New Zealand, where they are protected species.

Great white sharks often swim in small schools.

One of the most significant populations has chosen Dyer Island (South Africa), which is the site of numerous scientific studies of this species of shark. Great white sharks are relatively common in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Mauritius, Madagascar, Kenya and around Seychelles. Large populations persist off the coasts of California, Australia and New Zealand.

Carcharodons are epipelagic fish, their appearance is usually observed and recorded in coastal seas, abundant in prey such as seals, sea lions, whales, where other sharks and large bony fish live.
The great white shark is nicknamed the mistress of the ocean, since no one can compare with it in the power of attacks among other fish and sea inhabitants. Only the large killer whale terrifies Carcharodon.
Great white sharks are capable of long-distance migrations and can descend to considerable depths: these sharks have been recorded at depths of almost 1300 m.

Recent research has shown that great white sharks migrate between Baja California, Mexico, and a spot near Hawaii known as the White Shark Cafe, where they spend at least 100 days a year before migrating back to Baja California. Along the way, they swim slowly and dive to a depth of approximately 900 m. After arriving at the coast, they change behavior. Dives are reduced to 300 m and last up to 10 minutes.

White shark tagged offshore South Africa, showed the migration routes to the southern coast of Australia and back, which it made annually. Researchers have found that a great white shark swims this route in less than 9 months. The entire length of the migration route is about 20 thousand km in both directions.
These studies refuted traditional theories, according to which the white shark was considered an exclusively coastal predator.

Interactions have been established between different populations of white sharks, which were previously considered separate from each other.

The purposes and reasons why the white shark migrates are still unknown. There are suggestions that migrations are caused by the seasonal nature of hunting or mating games.

ate a great white shark with a spindle-shaped, streamlined shape, like most sharks - active predators. A large, conical head with medium-sized eyes located on it and a pair of nostrils, to which small grooves lead, increasing the flow of water to the shark’s olfactory receptors.

The mouth is very wide, armed sharp teeth triangular in shape with notches on the sides. With such teeth, like an ax, the shark easily cuts off pieces of flesh from its prey. The number of teeth in a great white shark, like in a tiger shark, is 280-300. They are located in several rows (usually 5). A complete change of the first row of teeth in young individuals of great white sharks occurs on average once every three months, in adults - once every eight months, i.e. The younger the sharks, the more often they change their teeth.

Behind the head there are gill slits - five on each side.

The body coloration of great white sharks is typical of fish that swim in the water column. The ventral side is lighter, usually off-white, the dorsal side is darker - gray, with shades of blue, brown or green. This color makes the predator unnoticeable in the water column and allows it to hunt for prey more efficiently.

Large and fleshy front dorsal and two breast ones. The ventral, second dorsal and anal fins are smaller. The plumage ends with a large caudal fin, both blades of which, like all salmon sharks, are approximately the same size.

Among the features of the anatomical structure, it should be noted that great white sharks have a highly developed circulatory system, which allows them to warm up their muscles, thereby achieving high mobility of the shark in the water.
Like all sharks, great whites lack a swim bladder, requiring them to constantly move to avoid drowning. However, it should be noted that sharks do not feel any particular inconvenience from this. For millions of years they managed without a bubble and did not suffer from it at all.

The usual size of an adult great white shark is 4-5.2 meters and weighs 700-1000 kg.

Females are usually larger than males. The maximum size of a white shark is about 8 m and weighs more than 3500 kg.
It should be noted that the maximum size of a white shark is a hotly debated topic. Some zoologists and shark specialists believe that the great white shark can reach significant sizes - more than 10 or even 12 meters in length.

For several decades, many scientific works on ichthyology, as well as the Book of Records, named two individuals as the largest great white sharks ever caught: a great white shark 10.9 m long, caught in southern Australian waters near Port Fairy in 1870- 1980s, and a 11.3 m long great white shark caught in a herring trap at a dam in New Brunswick, Canada in 1930. Reports of the capture of specimens 6.5-7 meters long were common, but the above sizes remained a record for a long time.

Some researchers have questioned the reliability of the size measurements of these sharks in both cases. The reason for this doubt is big difference between the sizes of record specimens and all other sizes of large great white sharks obtained through accurate measurements. The New Brunswick shark may not have been a white shark, but giant shark, since both sharks have a similar body shape. Since the fact of catching this shark and its measurement was recorded not by ichthyologists, but by fishermen, such an error could well have occurred. The question of the size of the Port Fairy shark was clarified in the 1970s when shark expert D. I. Reynolds studied the jaws of this great white shark.

Based on the size of the teeth and jaws, he determined that the Porta Fairy shark was no more than 6 meters in length. Apparently, an error in measuring the size of this shark was made in order to obtain a sensation.

Scientists determined the size of the largest specimen, the length of which was reliably measured, to be 6.4 meters. This great white shark was caught in Cuban waters in 1945, measured by experts and documented. However, in this case, there were experts who claim that the shark was actually several feet shorter. The unconfirmed weight of this Cuban shark was 3270 kg.

Young carcharadons feed on small bony fish, small marine animals and mammals. Grown-up great white sharks include larger prey in their diet - seals, sea lions, big fish, including smaller sharks, cephalopods and other more nutritious marine life. Whale carcasses are not ignored.

Their light coloration makes them less noticeable against the background of underwater rocks when they are stalking prey.
High body temperature, common to everyone herring sharks, allows them to develop more high speed when attacking, and also stimulates brain activity, as a result of which great white sharks sometimes use clever tactical moves during the hunt.

If we add to this a massive body, powerful jaws with strong and sharp teeth, then we can understand that great white sharks can handle any prey.

Great white sharks' food preferences include seals and other marine animals, including dolphins and small whales. These predators need fatty animal foods to maintain energy balance in the body. The system for heating muscle tissue with blood in great white sharks requires high-calorie food. And warm muscles provide high mobility to the shark’s body.

The tactics of hunting seals by the great white shark are curious. At first, it slides horizontally through the water, as if not noticing the tasty prey floating on the surface, then, approaching the victim closer, it abruptly changes the direction of movement upward and attacks it. Sometimes great white sharks even jump several meters out of the water at the moment of attack.

Often, carcharodon does not kill the seal immediately, but by hitting it from below with its head or slightly biting it, it throws it up above the water. Then it returns to the wounded victim and eats it.

If we take into account the passion of great white sharks for fatty food in the form of small marine mammals, then the reason for most shark attacks on people in the water becomes clear. Swimmers and, especially, surfers, when viewed from the depths, surprisingly resemble in their movements the prey familiar to great white sharks. This can explain known fact, when, often, a great white shark bites a swimmer and, realizing the mistake, leaves him, swimming away in disappointment. Human bones cannot be compared with seal fat.

You can watch a film about the great white shark and its hunting habits.

There are still many questions and mysteries about the reproduction of great white sharks. No one got to watch them mate and the female give birth to her young. Great white sharks are ovoviviparous fish, like most sharks.

The female's pregnancy lasts about 11 months, after which one or two cubs are born. Great white sharks are characterized by so-called intrauterine cannibalism, when more developed and stronger sharks eat their weaker brothers and sisters while still in the womb.

Newborns are equipped with teeth and everything necessary to begin an active life as predators.
Young sharks grow quite slowly and reach sexual maturity at approximately 12-15 years of age. It was the low fertility of great white sharks and long puberty that served as the reason for the gradual decrease in the population of these predators in the World Ocean.

The white shark, or Carcharodon carcharias, is the largest predator of modern sharks. The only surviving species from the Carcharodon genus is the “white death”, which alone deserves respect. This sharp-toothed monster leaves no chance of salvation for anyone. Carcharodon prefers the coastal waters of the continental plume, where more high temperature. However, for some populations one of the habitat regions is the Mediterranean Sea. Although, it would seem, this particular sea is considered one of the safest in terms of attacks on people by man-eating sharks. Should we be afraid of white sharks in the Mediterranean and how do predators behave in these warm waters?
Let's figure it out.

The Mediterranean Sea is connected to the Atlantic through the Strait of Gibraltar. So, according to the latest information, the number of “indigenous” populations of white sharks has decreased threefold here. Unregulated smuggling of carcharodon, as a source of delicious products - fins, fat, liver, as well as an expensive souvenir - jaws, has led to the fact that white sharks in the Mediterranean Sea are on the verge of extinction. This can lead to catastrophic changes in the entire aquatic system, since it is this type plays the role of police officers in an underwater state.
But nature took care of its toothy crumbs. Right now, cases of migration of man-eating sharks from the Atlantic have become more frequent - albeit slowly, but they are restoring their numbers.

Should you be afraid of encountering great white sharks in the Mediterranean? It turns out that humans are not the most desirable prey for Carcharodon. Our body is too sinewy and too bony to attract the appetite of a great white shark, so instead of homo sapiens, white sharks prefer fatty tuna. Throughout history, only a few cases of attacks by bloodthirsty killers directly in the Mediterranean Sea have been recorded, and even those were provoked by people.

The most common victims of white sharks are sport fishermen and divers who dare to swim too close to the predator. It is interesting that it was in the Mediterranean that the “shark phenomenon” was registered - if Carcharodon attacked a person, it did not tear it apart, as happens in other oceans, but, having tried to bite and realizing that it was not very appetizing food, let go and swam away.

Perhaps this behavior of great white sharks is related to ecology, or perhaps the reason is the food richness of local waters - there are a lot of fish in the Mediterranean Sea, including 45 species of sharks, almost all of them are potential prey for Carcharodon. Therefore, having felt the unusual taste of human flesh, Carcharodon often refuses to eat it.

However, there is an opinion of experts that a great white shark can take the path of cannibalism, having tasted human flesh during periods of famine. However, the same can be said about other active predators from the shark community.

Interestingly, the last 3 years have been characterized by an increase in encounters between Carcharodon and humans in the coastal Mediterranean waters. Usually these fastidious sharks do not swim close to the coasts, preferring cleaner waters, but now beaches are increasingly being closed due to the appearance of white sharks. Thus, vacationers on the beaches of the Cote d'Azur and Levantine coasts, resorts in Spain, Turkey and Montenegro were evacuated. This does not mean that the beaches were attacked by white-bellied predators, no, the sharks simply swam closer to the shores than 100 meters. In some cases, great white sharks have simply been confused with dolphins.

Fears of the great white shark in the Mediterranean are also stimulated by the mass of films about killer sharks, as well as isolated cases of attacks, which immediately become the subject of sensational hype in the media, often describing the events in unrealistic colors.

Thus, the whole world went around the shocking news about the death of the cult Italian director from the teeth of a carcharodon, which occurred off the coast of Cyprus. However, no one said that the man decided to try his hand at the now popular sport fishing. Trying to catch a great white shark with a fishing rod, he simply fell into the sea, where he was bitten in half by huge jaws. Not one more death There are no carcharodon attacks in this area.

The Mediterranean is not a fishing zone. There are not many fishermen here. However, this does not save the white shark from being hunted by people. Since the resort business is developed, all sacrifices are for the benefit of vacationers.
White-bellied beauties are killed for their fins, ribs, and teeth. Fins are a world famous delicacy; Often a fish is caught, the fins are cut off and the unfortunate predator is released to die. Usually such mutilated sharks die in the jaws of their fellow tribesmen, who take advantage of their helplessness.

Coastal restaurants use driftwood to make soups, one serving of which costs $100. The ribs are used to make souvenir combs, keychains, etc.

A separate income item is teeth and jaws. On the Italian coast, collectors pay up to $1,000 for a Carcharodon jaw.

The red shark is the mistress of the sea waters. The Mediterranean, as it turns out, is not the most popular habitat for carhadon populations. However, these waters are also mastered by white-bellied beauties. Calm, low-aggressive white sharks Mediterranean Sea different from their brothers. By maintaining ecological balance, these ancient predators decorate the entire aquatic system, and will patrol the waters of the Mediterranean for many years to come.

And only man, with his greed and thoughtless cruelty, can stop the existence of this fish necessary for Mother Nature - the great white shark.

There are many facts confirming such fruits of human activity in relation to many types of living beings in history, all of them are reflected on black sheets International Red Book.

Complex scientific research showed that people abusing fishing themselves lead to a decrease in the amount of food for sharks, and the lack of food is the main reason for their aggressive behavior towards swimmers and surfers. The number of collisions is increasing due to the fact that everyone more people go out into the open sea, ignoring the warnings of the authorities, and enter shark habitats, which leads to skirmishes and collisions with animals. Data shows that 6 out of 10 attacks are caused by humans. For example, emboldened scuba divers are increasingly trying to touch a shark. Very often there are attacks on fishermen who are trying to pull out a shark they have caught.

Well, how do you get out of a fight with a shark alive? Here are some real life examples. Richard Whatley, who was swimming, was attacked by a shark in mid-June 2005 in Alabama. He was almost 100 meters from the shore when he felt a strong push in his thigh. He realized it was a shark and tried to escape. A second later, the shark received a powerful punch to the nose - all that Richard was capable of, he put into this blow. Having knocked down the predator, Richard rushed with all his might to the saving shore. But the shark quickly recovered and continued to attack. However, each of her attempts to attack ended in failure: blows to the nose followed one after another, until Richard finally crawled ashore safe and sound. By the way, this was the first recorded shark attack on a person in Alabama in 25 years.

So what? Is a powerful right hook to the shark's nose an effective defense? In this case, the person, of course, survived, but in most cases, such blows will only irritate the shark, so if you see a shark, then you better freeze and wait for help.

Yes, so far the shark is the number one enemy in the water for humans. But I would like to hope that in the near future people will invent some kind of remedy against the attacks of these bloodthirsty predators. Then, perhaps, a person’s fear of this fish will dissipate and he will appreciate these formidable hunters of our planet.

Over millions of years of existence, sharks have perfectly adapted to living in the aquatic environment. They can be called the most perfect fish of all fish species known to man. For more successful survival, they lack only one thing - caring for their offspring. After birth, the cubs are left to their own devices. But maybe that’s why sharks have become such perfect creatures? After all, it is known that in the cruel world of nature, the strongest or “cunning” species survives. The only enemy of an adult shark is man. Although he does not exceed it in body size and number of teeth, he is capable of destroying any, even the largest shark, with one movement of his finger, by pressing the trigger button of the next lethal weapon. So maybe it's time to leave these creatures alone and give our descendants the opportunity to discover amazing world white sharks?

White shark attack tactics are varied. It all depends on what the shark has on his mind. These formidable predators are very curious animals. The only way for her to study her object of curiosity is to taste it. Scientists call such bites “research.” They are most often obtained by surfers or divers floating on the surface, whom the shark, due to its poor eyesight, mistakes for seals or sea lions. Having made sure that this “bony prey” is not a seal, the shark can lag behind the person, if it is not too hungry, of course.

According to official statistics, from 80 to 110 people are attacked by sharks annually (considered total quantity recorded attacks of all types of sharks), of which 1 to 17 were fatal. If we make a comparison, people kill about 100 million sharks every year.