The shark

📖 In short

The shark is a big fish, one of the most famous and feared animals in the sea. There are about 350 kinds of sharks living in every ocean in the world, most of them in warm seas. Most never attack people.

🤩 Did you know?

A whale shark can be 12 meters long and weigh more than 14 tonnes.
The smallest shark is only about 13 centimeters long.
The great white shark is a little over 6 meters long.
Sharks lived in the seas before the dinosaurs.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Endless teeth

A shark has many rows of sharp teeth. When a tooth falls out, a new one from the row behind moves forward to take its place, so a shark may use thousands of teeth in its life!

🔍 A skeleton of cartilage

A shark has no hard bones like other fish: its skeleton is made of cartilage, the bendy stuff in your ear and nose. This makes it light and flexible.

💡 Powerful senses

A shark can smell a tiny drop of blood in the water from far away, and senses fish moving and the weak electricity their bodies give off.

🎯 The gentle whale shark

The whale shark is the biggest fish in the world, but it's very calm and eats only tiny creatures, which it sieves from the water with its huge mouth.