White Shark Essay

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“21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds” (Genesis 1:21b). God created fish and the great white shark is one of many different kinds of fish.
Many people know it as the man eating shark, and some think of it to be fierce and deadly. Well all of these things are true, but people do not know the reason for all of these things and why it is so deadly. The great white is looked at as the most feared predator of man, but opinions are changing and there are some countries that are not allowing the capturing, or killing of great white sharks.
The great white shark has many different names; it can be called the great white, white pointer, white shark or even the white death, but none of these are its real name. Its complete scientific name is Carcharodon carcharias. The great white is most commonly known for its threat to man and its incredible size. The common great white shark is a grayish color and is about 21 feet long and weighs about 2 and a half tons. Although people have found some sharks that were 26 feet long and weighed almost 4 tons. The “layout” of a shark is pretty much the same as any fish. A great white as opposed to a lot of other fish has two dorsal fins while the majority of other fish only have one.
The senses of a great white are pretty amazing. This type of shark is able to smell a single drop of blood from a very long distance. A shark’s nose is underneath its snout and when smelling something the signal then goes to the olfactory lamellae. (“The olfactory lamellae are a series of folds on the interior surface of the olfactory sac which increase the surface area giving the shark more opportunity to reg...

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...re not completely mature until they are around fifteen years old. They are completely mature physically, but sexually the average complete maturity age is fifteen. Not very much is known about the mating habits of great white sharks. Great whites are viviparous, “which means eggs develop and hatch in the uterus and continue to develop until birth”. The gestation period of the female is also not known but scientists believe that it is between eleven months to a year. The female most commonly gives birth to her pups (a baby shark) in the late spring or early summer. Many fishermen in the Sea of Cortez say that the population of great whites goes up in that area, so it would make sense that is where most mothers go to give birth. Once born the pups are let go by there mother and they then have to fend for themselves. Studies show that the survival rate of pups is low.

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