Happy Shark Week! Last year, I gave five interesting facts about sharks to celebrate. This year, I’m going to give five more.
- Sharks don’t have bones. That’s right; instead of bones, sharks are made of cartilaginous tissues. Other sea creatures that have this are known as elasmobranchs (according to the NOAA). The reason we have fossils from them is because of calcium salts in their skeletal cartilage.
- Sharks can go into a trance when they’re flipped upside down. This state is called tonic immobility, which is basically paralysis. No one is sure of the reason behind this trance but scientists believe it could be related to mating or to deter predators.
- Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the ocean. Some can be as big as 32 feet and weigh up to 20 tons! Some are as big as a school bus. Now that’s what I call huge.
- Great white sharks use sneak attacks to catch their prey. Instead of simply crushing their prey with their jaws, great whites prefer to attack from behind and let their victims bleed out before eating.
- Sharks can be small too. The dwarf lantern shark is only six inches long. When people picture sharks, I bet they don’t picture ones smaller than our hands.
Those are my five facts of this year! I made this point in last year’s blog, but after hearing about how some channels are re-enacting human deaths from sharks, I feel the need to make my point again. Sharks aren’t as dangerous as people make them out to be. In fact, we are still more of a danger to them than the other way around. Thousands of sharks are killed to every human death.
We only consider them dangerous because of all the movies that show sharks as human killing machines. My challenge to you this week? Go learn something new about sharks. They’re interesting creatures. Discovery and National Geographic are both featuring sharks on their channels.
Sources
Alex Daniel July 10, 2018. “50 Shocking Facts about Sharks.” Best Life, 7 Aug. 2019, bestlifeonline.com/sharks-facts/.
Fisheries, NOAA. “12 Shark Facts That May Surprise You.” NOAA, 2018, www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/12-shark-facts-may-surprise-you.
“Whale Shark.” National Geographic, 21 Sept. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/w/whale-shark/.