There are almost 400 known species of shark. Some, like the megamouth shark, eat plankton. Whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, also eats plankton, small fish and crustaceans - and it reaches lengths of 60 feet and can weigh over 9 tons! Whale sharks are so docile that divers have reported actually climbing abord the fish and hitching rides. The only danger to humans is that it can damage boats when it bumps into them.
The basking shark, also enormous (40-50 ft, 3.6 tons), is also a plankton-and-small-things filter feeder. Dwarf dogfish, on the other hand, reach only about 7 inches at maturity. White sharks, cub sharks, oceanic whitetips, tiger sharks and ganges sharks are considered some of the most dangerous to humans.
I was also reading about rays, in particular giant devil rays.
A giant - twenty-two feet in breadth - towed a twenty-five-foot motorboat more than ten miles, with the boat's anchor dragging on the bottom part of the time. After five hours it was still alive, though four harpoons and several rifle bullets were embedded in its body. - The Shark Almanac, Thomas B. Allen
Amazing creatures. Twenty-two feet across!
No doubt I will have more snippets as I read the second half of the book. It's really interesting, get hold of it if you can.
Oh yeah, so easy to get caught up in the fear, scare and run away mode when it comes to the water. One morning my eldest daughter (was 10) was kayaking very early morning and a pod of orca's surfaced. Sitting there 300 metres off shore on our plastic double Kayak our first thought was ...oh fark. We quickly realised we were not part of their agenda so were able to soak in the moment. Picture it .... milk pond calm, a slight mist off the water, silence and a gift so beautiful that my ignorance was replaced with awe. Oh yeah!!! beautiful.
Posted by: Mangina at February 8, 2006 09:08 PM