67 Shocking Facts about Sharks | Legacy Facts

# Sharks are believed to have appeared first 420 million years ago.

# The sharks survived five mass extinctions.

# Sharks live all over the planet in every ocean.

# The world is home to over 465 different types of sharks.

# Around 50 different species of sharks glow in the dark. That is approximately 10 percent of all known sharks.

# Scientists believe that sharks might be color blind. They have eyes similar to cats, however, and can see better than other fish in dark and murky waters.

# Sharks have eyelids but they don't blink because their eyes are cleaned by the surrounding water.

# Sharks, unlike fish, can swim only forwards. That's because their fins are stiff, and muscles can not control them.

# Sharks don't have a single bone in their bodies.

# Sharks have an excellent sense of smell, so powerful that in an Olympic-sized pool they can detect a single drop of blood.

# An average shark have 40 to 45 teeth in 7 rows. Sharks frequently lose teeth, and in their lifetime they will go through 30,000 teeth.

# The outside of shark teeth is made up of fluoride, most toothpaste's active ingredient, meaning Sharks never get cavities.

# In eight days, sharks can grow a new set of teeth.

# Sharks have no vocal cords, so they don't make any sounds. Therefore they are called "silent killers."

# Sharks have an excellent sense of hearing. They can detect prey up to a distance of 3000 feet. In fact, their ears are situated inside their heads.

# A female shark's skin is much thicker than a male's since males bite females while mating.

# To navigate the ocean, sharks rely on electro-reception and notice prey.

# Sharks will sink if they stop swimming.

# Sharks communicate with each other by body language. Some common communications include swimming zigzags, shaking heads, hunched backs, and head butts.

# Female Greenland sharks or female gurry shark reach sexual maturity at the age of 150.

# Less than 10 percent of mating attempts actually succeed due to the resistance of female sharks.

# The frilled sharks have the longest period of gestation. They are pregnant for 3 and a half years.

# Female sharks could store sperm for up to a year before fertilizing their eggs with it.

# The whale shark lays the world's largest eggs. In 1953, an egg from a whale shark with a diameter of 14 inches was found in the Gulf of Mexico.

# Before giving birth the majority of female sharks will lose their appetites. This is a biological trigger to avoid them eating their own pups.

# Once a tiger shark's embryos develop teeth, they attack each other in the womb and eat each other.

# Whale sharks give birth to the greatest number of pups. They can produce several hundred in a litter.

# When a shark consumes food they can't digest (like a turtle shell or tin can), they will vomit by thrusting their stomach out of their mouth and then pulling it back in.

# Bull sharks can live in both saltwater and freshwater.

# Whale Sharks can live up to 100 years.

# Most sharks never sleep because they have to constantly pump water through their mouth over their gills to breathe or they will die.

# In Greenland, there is a shark that kills polar bears, which can live for up to 200 years.

# In one-tenth of a second Angel sharks can ambush their prey.

# Angel sharks were once referred to as monkfish or bishop fish because their fins look like flowing robes.

# The laziest sharks are the nurse sharks. They rarely migrate and eat less than most other sharks. Unlike other sharks, they also don't need to move to breathe.

# The most unusual shark in the world, the megamouth, was only discovered in 1976. The mouth of this shark can reach three feet across, while the rest of the body is approximately 16 feet long. Only 14 megamouths were ever seen.

# Bamboo sharks do not swim. They walk across the ocean floor using four different fins.

# Because of its highly aggressive nature the Grey Reef Shark was called the "gangster shark."

# In fact, Zebra Sharks look more like leopards with black spots but lose those spots when they mature.

# The Thresher sharks use their tails to slap their prey to death.

# Sharks can be extrovert or introvert.

# Great white sharks consume an average of 11 tons of food each year. Though they can go without food for as long as three months.

# Great whites can jump up to ten feet out of the water to catch their prey. This is done to beat the competition for food.

# Sharks are older than the trees.

# The age of a shark can be measured by counting the rings on its vertebrae.

# The "Shortfin Mako" Shark can accelerate faster than a Porsche.

# Sharks also have a rush hour: a study found that shark traffic peaked between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. on major routes around Palmyra Atoll.

# The majority of the sharks go hunting alone. Some species, however, such as scalloped hammerhead sharks, hunt in packs.

# Great white sharks swim for 40 days each winter to meet up between Mexico and Hawaii, and no one knows why.

# Lantern sharks use bioluminescence which makes them glow in the dark. Using this trick they can attract mates and can confuse their prey.

# Some captive female sharks were known to reproduce, essentially cloning themselves, without a male's aid.

# The most endangered species on the planet are the blue sharks. Blue sharks used in shark fin soup are highly coveted for their fins.

# Some Greenland sharks born before the English Civil War are alive today.

# The largest shark ever to live was the massive Megalodon, which measured 50 feet long. However, these terrifying sharks were extinct 16 million years ago.

# The smallest shark is the dwarf lantern which only grows to six inches and the largest is the whale shark which grows to a whopping length of 41.5 feet.

# The goblin shark, the oldest known species of living shark that has been around for 120 million years. The frilled shark is the second oldest, that has been around for 80 million years.

# The hammerheads, which evolved about 20 million years ago, are the youngest species of shark.

# Playing dead will help you survive a shark attack, was confirmed by MythBusters.

# About two-thirds of shark attacks on humans occurred below six feet deep in the water.

# Signs of an attack by a circling shark: it will hunch its back, lower its pectoral fins, and swim in zigzag motions.

# Your odds of being attacked by a shark and being killed are 1 in 3,748,067. You're more likely to die from fireworks or lightning in a lifetime.

# Sharks annually kill 12 people while people kill 11,417 sharks per hour.

# The first written account of a shark attack is found in the description of Herodotus (c. 484–425 B.C.) of hordes of "monsters" devouring the Persian fleet's shipwrecked sailors.

# You're more likely to die from a coconut fall than from a shark attack.

# Because sharks get cancer very rarely, scientists are studying their cartilage in hopes of finding a cure for the disease.

# New Yorkers bite ten times more people than sharks do around the world.

# Jaws' author dedicated the last decade of his life to preserving sharks in order to make up for the mass hysteria he helped create.

If you are interested then check out our "Facts About Dolphins"

Please share these Facts About Shark with your friends and on your social network sites. #Legacyfacts.

Source: 1

Image Source: 1, 2, 3