The Shark Story

Be it in the movies or the media, Sharks have almost always been portrayed as big, bad, demonic characters. Blockbuster films like ‘Jaws’ have immortalized their negative image and they have forever been looked upon with fear and hatred. The author fights a case for these vulnerable ‘sea dogs’, sharing with us the true shark story that lies hidden in the ocean blues.

- Pranad Patil

For a layman, the first association with the word ‘shark’ is a terrorizing wide open jaw with hundreds of razor sharp teeth, belonging to an attacker plunging out of the sea. A wildlife lover, who though in awe also admires sharks on his television sets, might add to it the beautiful moments of the Great White Shark swimming relentlessly in the blue of the ocean. Few might even quote names like the Bull Shark and the Tiger Shark. But when we talk of the true shark story, all of this is just like the tip of the shark’s fin that sticks out of the water, and a big fish lies undiscovered underneath, (pun intended).

AS OLD AS THE SHARKS

Let’s begin the story when the sharks began their long journey on this planet. Sharks have been around for over 450 million years on this planet. This was long before any land vertebrates existed and before most plants had even colonized the continents! It also means that they have survived 5 mass extinction events on the planet! But these sharks were quite different from the modern sharks, and hence there is some debate over whether they should be considered as true sharks or not. Nonetheless, they were the ancestors of the modern sharks we see today.

Modern sharks (the image we have in mind as explained earlier) have been on the planet for around 100 million years and are mostly recognized by their fossilized teeth. As the rest of the bones are made cartilage, they rarely get fossilized.

There are over 500 species of sharks described till date. They range from the tiny, 17 cm long, Dwarf Lantern shark, to the huge, 40 feet long Whale Shark - the biggest fish in the ocean! But only a few species such as Great White Shark, Bull Shark, Tiger Shark and Hammerhead Shark, which are generally the top predators in the aquatic food chains, are commonly known.

KNOW THE SHARK