Page 40 - World of Animals - Book of Sharks & Ocean Predators

Sharks & Ocean Predators
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Inside a great white

Get under the skin of these fearsome predators Eyes
The great white’s eyes function
to see how their bodies have evolved cunning rather like a human’s and are
adaptations for both speed and stealth, placing Brain highly sensitive to changing
light and colour. When the shark
them as voracious hunters at the very top of the attacks, it rolls its eyes back to
ocean’s food chain keep them protected.

Nostrils

GREAT WHITE SHARK
Carcharodon carcharias
Class Chondrichthyes

Territory Throughout most
temperate seas and oceans
Diet Carnivore
Lifespan Up to 70 years Body temperature
Adult weight 2,300kg /
5,070lbs This cold-blooded shark
Conservation status is able to warm its body
above the heat of the
water temperature, for
VULNERABLE more-effi cient hunting.

Power bite
The great white’s bite
is strengthened and
Heart
braced from behind by
a cartilaginous structure
called the hyoid arch, so
Pointed teeth
that the shark can deliver The great white’s preference for
a bite of 1.8 tons.
seals means the dentition of the
upper jaw is more pointed in
Strong jaw Liver
The upper jaw isn’t fused shape, enabling it to impale and With no swim bladder like
immobilise its catch.
to the skull, meaning other fish, the great whites stay

the shark can thrust it buoyant in the water thanks to a
forwards to trap prey. large oil-fi lled liver.
INFANCY JUVENILE MATURITY

Survival of the fi ttest 0 months In the shallows 10 minutes Small white sharks 0-4 years Mini killers 4-7 years Male sexual maturity 8-9 years

Even before birth, great white pups Female great whites give birth Great white shark pups are born as Despite their relatively small size, A er around nine years, when they
are already voracious predators and to between five and ten pups miniature replicas of their parents. Giving juvenile great whites are already acute measure roughly 3.3 to 4 metres

have been know to eat one another at once, usually in the safer no parental care a er birth, the mother hunters, feeding on fish, invertebrates (11.5 to 13 feet) long, male white

while still in the womb. shallow waters of coastal seas. abandons the pups almost instantly. and other smaller marine creatures. sharks reach sexual maturity.
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