Page 37 - Shark

Gill rakers
Eye
Nostril

Open mouth of basking shark

Open mOuthed
As the basking shark swims along, 400,000
gallons (1.5 million liters) of water flow
through its huge mouth each hour. Drifting
in the water are tiny creatures like baby crabs,
fish eggs, copepods, and arrow worms—all
known as plankton (left)—which are strained
out of the water by hundreds of long bristles,
or gill rakers (pp. 24–25), and trapped in a
layer of slime. After a minute the basking
shark closes its mouth, emptying the water
out through its gill slits before swallowing
0 1,200 2,400 3,600 its food. Basking sharks may migrate
miles several thousand miles in search of good
supplies of plankton. In winter, when
plankton becomes scarce in surface waters,
basking sharks may dive as deep as 3,000 ft
(850 m) in search of patches of plankton
that are found there.
Shark art attack
This biplane has eye-catching shark
teeth art on its nose and tire covers to
attract attention. Shark faces have also
been used on fighter planes to instill
Distribution of fear in the enemy—the US Air
basking sharks
Force had them on their Curtiss P-40
Warhawks in the Far East in World
War II, for example.
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