The Great White Shark- A Hot-Blooded Killer Machine
The ocean, a Mysterious world, has been home to gigantic aquatic animals since mythological ages. In this murky blue, there rules the world’s most formidable predators, a hungry speedy hunter- The Great white shark. Beyond imagination, this beast is far more ferocious and terrifying.
They have been attacking randomly as a dread predator for a long-long time, maintaining their fearsome reputation. Of almost 400 known species of sharks, the great white shark stands out notorious as the ultimate killing machine. A roving oceanic assassin that attacks out of nowhere. By honed its senses and biological structure, it has ruled the sea for four hundred million years.
Although fishes are cold-blooded, but great white sharks keep vital areas of their body warm. Instead of being lost to the sea, the heat generated by deep muscle activity is recycled and warms incoming blood keeping the Sharks core up to sixty degrees warmer than the water. It boosts the shark’s metabolism like a turbo engine to give great whites 45 percent more power than similar-sized fish.
The heat of a shark’s brain increases its ability to process information; as a result, it can detect its prey from 3 miles (5 km) away. It is capable of detecting the merest vibrations produced in water from very far distances, and its electrical senses can track the neural activity of prey. The heat-assisted super senses make them an exceptional predator, and its warm body helps them thrive even in the ice-cold waters of Antarctica.
Physical Description
Size
Baby sharks are up to 4 feet (1.22 meters) in length, and they grow about 25 centimetres every year. In Great White Sharks, females are on average 1m-1.5 m larger than males. Males have an average length of 4 meters, while most females attain a size of about 5 meters.
The average weight of adult males is 530 Kg-400 Kg, while that of females is between 600 Kg-1100 Kg. According to the record, the largest female among all the great white sharks found so far was 20 feet long and weighing 2200 Kg.
Teeth
The jaw of the Great White Shark is extremely powerful compared to any other shark. Each tooth of the great white shark is serrated blade like a saw-edged razor, for slicing through skin, flesh and even bone. Young great white sharks have narrow, pointed teeth for seizing slippery fish, but as the shark grows older, its teeth become more triangular in shape.
All sharks shed their teeth and are replaced continuously; new teeth grow from behind. New teeth roll out from inside while old, blunt teeth drop off outside. They produce twenty to forty thousand teeth throughout their life.
Some argue that the great white shark these jaws came from competed directly with Megalodon but while it made the great white look like a minnow giant tooth couldn’t save Megalodon when oceans cooled, and the warm-bodied great white was left as the supreme hunter of the sea.
Where do they live?
The great white shark is found in all coastal and offshore zones where the temperature is between 10 and 25 degrees Celsius. These regions include the northeastern zone and California of the United States, South Africa, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Mediterranean Sea, including the Marmara and Bosporus.
The densest population of these aquatic animals are found around South Africa’s Dyer Island. White shark sightings are frequent around the seal colonies. The quests to the Spencer Gulf in South Australia, one of the few places in the world known to have more white shark activity than the Chatham Islands (New Zealand).
What do they eat?
They are among the most elusive and least known aquatic animals on the planet. Great White sharks are known to feed on dead whales. Recent studies increasingly report that white sharks are selective about what they eat and far from the mindless eat anything.
It’s thought white sharks feed almost exclusively on fish for their first 12 to 15 years and begin to hunt marine mammals as they get older faster and smarter. The bay may be a nursery area favoured by young sharks in the transition to adulthood.
Great White Shark attacks
Worldwide there are more than 100 shark attacks in a year, out of which about 25–30 attacks are attributed to these hot-blooded killers. These aquatic animals typically ambush their prey from below.
However, most of these attacks are not fatal. Most great white attacks involve a single strike. Some scientists believe a great white sophisticated taste sense quickly determines humans not fatty enough to be worth eating and so it spits us back out.
Originally published at https://www.secretwildlife.online on July 21, 2020.
