Diet of sharks

diet of sharks






All sharks are carnivores , which means that they feed on other small animals. Sharks are usually thought to have massive razor like teeth, that easily tear through flesh. However sharks and their teeth are designed for a varied diets, for example the whale shark feeds on plankton and very small bony fish, because of their diet their teeth are quite undeveloped and therefore the fish are caught through the sieves of their mouth.







In general, sharks will eat fish, other sharks, squids, turtles , dolphins, rays , seals and crustaceans. The main ingredient that is key in their diet is fat as it provides them with energy for travelling, hunting and maintaining a normal body temperature.

An example is the tiger shark, it is known for eating almost anything that it encounters. it even includes inanimate objects like license plates and motor vehicles. When hunting , a shark will track down the smallest weakest prey , as they are the easiest to catch and this allows the shark to conserve energy. Sharks tend to eat 10 percent of their body weight and more each week.

Different types of sharks

 There are hundreds of different species of sharks, I will explain some examples:


Angel sharks- it has a flat body like a stingray, the difference between the ray and this shark  is that the pectorial fins are not attached to his head. They tend to bury themselves in sand of mud with only their eyes and the top of their bodies exposed.

Basking sharks- it is the second largest shark (about 30 feet long), it eats plankton and filters it from the water using "gill rakers".

Blue sharks- blue sharks are only about 12 feel long, they have a very sleek , tapered body. They are capable of leaping out of water and are incredibly fast swimmers. Their diet consists of mostly squid and they are known to be quite dangerous as they have a history of attacking people

Great white sharks-  these particular sharks have attacked people more than any other type. the average size is about 12 feet long and 3,000 pounds heavy. The unusual thing about this smart and something that makes it stand out is that it can lift its head above or out of the water.

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sharks

Hey there,






Welcome to my blog. I will be writing and posting about where sharks came from, different types of sharks and much more!

Lots of fossil evidence has shown that sharks existed before dinsosaurs did , which would have been around 400 million years ago! Since the shark skeleton is mainly made up of cartilage, the only thing preserved was the fossil samples of dermal denticles and the teeth, The first fish appeared on earth about 510 million years ago. Not all shark species  that we have today are still around , fossils have shown that many have gone extinct. The oldest fossil ever recorded of a shark dates back to approx 455 million years ago.
 

 

The arrival of modern sharks dates back to around 100 million years ago! 65 million years ago there was a massive meteor shower which killed the majority of animal species on our planet.

 

One of the best known sharks is called the megalodon, dating back to 1.6 million years ago.. fossils show that it most likely evolved from the Cretolama which lived 60-100 million years ago