Page 36 - Shark

Basking beauties

Cruising along with their huge mouths wide open, basking sharks
are like giant mobile sieves filtering out countless tiny creatures on
which they feed. This shark is the second largest fish in the world,
after the whale shark (pp. 32–33), growing to about 33 ft (10 m)
long and weighing over 4.5 tons. Basking sharks often swim at
the surface on sunny days with their dorsal fins, and perhaps
their snouts or tails out of the water. They are probably
more attracted by a concentration of food at the surface
than the delights of basking in
the sunshine. Unfortunately,
here they make easy targets
for fishermen who catch
them with harpoons or
nets. They are caught for
their large fins, meat, and the
Shark fiShing
At Achill Island off oil in their livers—which may
Irelands’s northwest
coast, basking sharks be a quarter of the shark’s body
were once netted in a weight. Basking sharks also get
bay, then speared with
a lance, and dragged entangled in nets and ropes, and
ashore. Fishing may be run down by speed boats
stopped when
the numbers of and jet-skis. To conserve these
sharks coming slow-breeding sharks, they are
into the bay
declined. protected in some areas.

Nostril
Eye
Gill arch—water passes
through arch and then
through a sieve of gill rakers
before flowing over the gills
and out through the gill slits

Oily mOuthS
Oil from sharks’
livers has been
used in cosmetics
like lipsticks.