Great
White Sharks - Fact File Special
3301/ Seal Island, in False Bay,
South Africa, is just 400m long and 80 metres wide (1,312ft
by 262ft) is home to 64,000 South African Fur Seals - the
Great White Sharks favourite wintertime prey.
3302/ Contrary to popular belief,
biblical Jonah was swallowed by a Great White Shark (GWS),
not a whale. It is thought that a shark may have been landed
with a man's body inside, prompting the myth to arise.
3303/ Many Greek fishermen call
the GWS 'Lamia' - its name in Ancient Greece. Sicilians often
still use the old Roman name of 'Pescecane' or 'Dog Fish'
in Australia, it called 'White Pointer'.
3304/ The biggest GWS on record
was 6 metres (19 feet) long and was caight off Western Ledge,
Albany, Australia. Shark pups can be more than 1.5 metres
(4.9 feet) long at birth.
3305/ Great White Sharks can
live for 30 to 40 years.
3306/ The gestation period for
a GWS is more than a year before they give birth.
3307/ Great Whites can have thousands
of teeth during their lifetime. These are triangular, serrated,
razor-sharp and up to 7.5cm long in rows that 'rotate' into
places to replace lost or damaged teeth.
3308/ One 15 foot great white
was found with 200 plus crabs in its stomach.
3309/ Great White Sharks have
seven senses. They can detect minute electrical charges eg
from a seal's muscle contraction - using jelly filled canals
in the head, called ampullae of Lorenzini. They can also detect
changes in water pressure. They are also able to feel vibrations
in the water using a line of canals that go from their head
to tails. Called a "lateral line", these canals
are filled with water and contain sensory cells with hairs
growing out of them. These hairs move when the water vibrates
and alerts the shark to potential prey.
3310/ Most scientists agree that
Great White Shark attacks on humans ofteb stem from territorial
aggression because of a perceived invasion of their space,
and are usually non-predatory in nature.
3311/ Great Whites can swim at
up to 25 mph. They must swim continually or they would sink,
as they don't have a swim bladder to keep them afloat like
a bony fish.
3312/ Great White Sharks have
a heat exchanging circulatory system, keeping vital organs
above the temperature of the surrounding seawater.
3313/ Great White Sharks are
found throughout the world, mainly in temperate and subtropical
oceans; their maximum depths are around 250 to 300 metres
(820-984 feet).
3314/ Their sense of smell is
so powerful that they can detect a drop of blood in 100 litres
(25 gallons) of water.
3315/ On a beach holiday, you
are more likely to die from a coconut falling on your head
than a shark attack.
3316/ Sharks evolved over 200
million years before the dinosaurs and their highly sophisticated
template has remained virtually unchanged for the past 70
million years.
3317/ It takes many shark species
15 to 20 years to reach reproductive maturity. So any wholesale
slaughter, such as 'finning', to cut off their fin for use
in Shark Fin Soup, a 'delicacy' in Hong King is devestating
to their numbers. Many species numbers have declined dramatically.
3318/ A shark bites with it's
lower jaw first and then its upper. It tosses its head back
and forth to tear loose a piece of meat which it swallows
whole.
3319/ Sharks sometimes eat other
sharks. For example, a tiger shark might eat a bull shark,
a bull shark might eat a blacktip shark and a blacktip shark
might eat a dogfish shark!
3320/ On average, there are only
about 100 shark attacks each year and only 10 of those result
in a human death.
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