Great White Shark
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is a kind of shark. This fish is a good swimmer and predator.
Great white sharks have about 3,000 teeth, arranged in many rows. The first two rows of the teeth are used for grabbing and cutting the animals they eat, while the other teeth in the last rows replace the front teeth when these are broken, worn down, or fall out. The teeth have the shape of a triangle with jags on the edges. Great white sharks eat fish and other animals, for example seals and sea lions.
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[edit] How great white sharks look
The back of the shark has a grey color and the underside is colored white. The sharks have three main fins: the dorsal (on back) and two pectoral fins (on the sides). There are five gill slits on great white sharks. The great white becomes adult about nine years after its birth. The growth of the great white shark is about 25-30 centimetres per year and they can grow to an average size of 4.5 meters. The longest ever measured great white was 6.4 meters long.
[edit] Where they live
Great white sharks live in the sea. The can be found near the coast, in all warm waters. They occasionally make dives into the deep water of open oceans. They can be found in water as shallow as three feet deep, and as deep as 1,280 metres.
They may swim near:
- Western Atlantic: from Newfoundland to Florida, Bahamas, Cuba, Northern Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina;
- East Atlantic: South England, France, Senegal, Ghana, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Mediterranean: North Africa, South of France, West and South coast of Italy, Malta, Greece, Israel;
- Indian Ocean: South Africa, Seychelles, Red Sea
- Western Pacific: Japan, Korea, China, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand;
- Central Pacific: Hawaii
- Eastern Pacific: from Alaska to California, and from Panama to Chile
[edit] White sharks and human beings
Sometimes, sharks attack human beings, but they do not do it because they like to eat people. When sharks see some new object, for example a surfboard, they bite it to know what kind of object it might be. Sometimes, sharks see the shadow of surfers and attack them because they think they are seals.
Humans, in any case, are not good food for great white sharks, because the sharks' digestion is too slow to cope with the human body's high amount of bone and low amount of muscle and fat. Because of this nearly all attacks by great whites don't continue after the first bite. Deaths are caused by loss of blood from the first wound. Most attacks also occur in waters where it is hard to see or where the shark is confused.
[edit] External links
- ARKive - images and movies of the great white shark
- Great White Shark Pictures - Great White Pictures on Shark-Pictures.com
