The Secret Life Of Great White Sharks Essay -- essays research papers

Great clean Sharks are heavy(p)ly misinterpreted as vicious man-eaters because of the media, movies, and packs imaginations, but they are actually large fish who mistake people for seals and other marine life. What is a great white shark? The great white, among the least understood of Earths creatures, is an apex predator, meaning that it is at the top of the food chain with no natural predators. This means great whites drive their pick of food when it comes to selecting their prey (Klimley 15).Carcharodon carcharias, better know as the great white shark, have existed as a group for over 350 cardinal years (Long). Its name means ragged-toothed (Gorman 10). The largest white shark on record was 21 feet capacious and weighed 7302 pounds. Its ancestors, now extinct, were three times this size, with teeth that were six inches long (White Shark). Today sharks are represented by over 600 species (Long). Great whites are part of a grouping know as mackerel sharks, a grouping which in cludes the salmon, porbeagle, and maco shark (MacGregor 46). Unlike the true fishes, sharks do not have internal bone, but instead have a cartilaginous skeleton (Long). This stiff flexible sensible is found in the ridge of your nose and in your earlobes. Because cartilage does not leave fossil remains like bones, there are no fossils of antique sharks- just their teeth (Klimley 56). Little is known about great whites because they are enormous, bulky, and hard to handle. And thats when theyre dead. Their body temperature is sometimes ten to fifteen degrees Celsius warm than the surrounding water, which makes them efficient predators in cool water (Gorman 15). The back of the shark is a dull gray color and the underside is colored white. The tail is semilunar shaped. There are five gill slits on great white sharks. Studying a live great white shark up exclude and in detail is, for obvious reasons, practically impossible (Sanders 31). The great white is the only shark that can hol d its head above water to leave what is happening on the surface (MacGregor 47). It has been said that sharks do not swim through water as much as they fly through it with their pigboat like body (Gorman 25). The fins of a shark serve important roles in this action. As the shark moves the Caudal, back, fin to propel it forward, careful adjustment of the pectoral, side, and dorsal, top, fins keep the shark leve... ...is planet. For them to be driven to extinction by man, a relative newcomer, would be more than an ecological tragedy it would be a moral travesty (Gorman 29). industrial plant CitedAll About Sharks. 5 Feb 2001. <<a href="http//www.ozemail.com.au/bilsons/sharks.htm">http//www.ozemail.com.au/bilsons/sharks.htm>.Bowman, S.C. Shark Attacks. Readers Digest July. 1995 74-8.Gorman, Jessica. Inside the Great White. National Geographic Apr. 2000 2-29.Klimley, A.P, Anderson, S.D, Henderson, R.P, and P. Pyle. Great White Sharks the biological science of Carchar odon carcharias. New York American Publishing Inc., 1996.Long, Douglas. The White Shark. 5 Feb 2001 <<a href="http//www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/Doug/shark.html">http//www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/Doug/shark.html>.MacGregor, Elise. Beyond Jaws. Windsurfing Magazine. Sept/Oct. 1993 45-9.Martin, Glen. Great White Sharks. Discover. June. 1999 54-61. Sanders, Zack. A Great White Shark. Newsweek. Oct. 1996 30- 36.White Sharks. 20 Feb 2001. <<a href="http//www.aqua.org/animals/species/whitshark.html">http//www.aqua.org/animals/species/whitshark.html>.