CARTILAGINOUS FISH
ANGEL SHARK
(Squatina squatina)
This bottom-dwelling shark lives in water as deep as 300 feet. With its flat body and broad pectoral fins, it resembles a ray. Angel sharks eat small seabed fish. Like other sharks, they can sense the faint electrical field that surrounds a fish's body, so they can find prey buried in the sand. Angel shark eggs hatch inside the mother's body, producing live young.
SPOTTED WOBBEGONG
(Orectolobus maculatus)
DWARF SHARK
(Squaliolus laticaudus)
Instead of killing and swallowing its prey, the cookiecutter bites off small chunks of flesh. It attacks animals much larger than itself, including dolphins and whales, and has even been known to bite off the rubber fittings of submarines. Cookiecutters live mainly in deep water, traveling to the surface after dark to feed on other fish.
With its blunt head, spiny fins, and downward-pointing mouth, this fish looks very different from most other sharks. It feeds after dark on mollusks and crabs, crushing them with its flattened back teeth. Port Jackson sharks breed in shallow water and lay large eggs with tough, spiral-shaped cases. the females sometines push their eggs into crevices, where they have the best chance of surviving until the hatch.
This large, cold-water shark feeds on fish, seals, and garbage thrown overboard from fishing boats. It is a sluggish animal that spends much of its time near the seabed. Its flesh is poisonous to humans, but the sharks sometimes eat each other. Adult Greenland sharks usuallly have finger-sized parasitic crustaceans attached to their eyes. Scientists think that the crustaceans may help lure prey toward the sharks.
The largest fish in the world, this immense shark can weigh more than 20 tons. Its tail can be more than 8 feet from tip to tip, and its mouth is wide enough to swallow a human swimmer sideways. Fortunately, this giant animal is not interested in people, feeding entirely on plankton and tiny fish. As it cruises near the surface, it takes large gulps of water and filters food from it. Whale sharks sometimes collide with ships, but are otherwise rarely seen. They lay the world's largest eggs, measuring up to 12 inches in length. Little is known about how they grow because sightings of young whale sharks are extremely rare.
This is the second larges species of shark, weighing up to four tons. It is a filter feeder, though its shape is more typical of a hunting shark, with a streamlined body and pointed snout. When the basking shark feeds, it opens its mouth until it is almost circular and strains huge gills. It swims slowly, as if it is basking in the sunshine, which is how it got its name. Basking sharks give birth to live young after a gestation period of more than a year.
Nurse sharks spend most of their time on the seabed and are found as far north as New York. They have much smaller mouths than most sharks of their size and feed with a vacuum-cleaner action, sucking up mollusks and crustaceans. Nurse sharks look dangerous, but they are generally harmless to people. If they are provoked, however, they can attack. Once a nurse shark has bitten, its jaws often lock shut and have to be forced apart. Nurse sharks give birth to live young.
The megamouth shark was discovered in 1976, when the first known specimen was brought ashore in Hawaii. Like the whale shark and basking shark, it is a filter-feeder, but it lives in deep water instead of near the surface. It has a black-brown, tapering body and, true to its name, a huge mouth. Its teeth are tiny, but it has luminous organs inside its mouth that probably help it attract food. The megamouth is seldom seen, and so little is known about its breeding habits or how widespread it is.
A thresher shark's tail is almost as long as the rest of its body. The lower tail lobe is small, but the upper lobe is large and arched, ending in a pointed tip. Threshers feed alone or in groups or schools of fish. They thrash their tails from side to side to round up or wound their prey. They can even use their tails to knock low-flying seabirds out of the air. Threshers give birth to up to four live young at a time. They produce more, but some of the young eat the others while inside their mother's body.
The great white is the world's largest and most dangerous predatory shark. It attacks seals, dolphins, and other fish, and eats all kinds of leftovers and remains, including dead whales and garbage thrown from boats. It has a reputation as a man-eater and has been known to attack small boats, biting or punching them with its snout until they sink. The great white's reputation makes it highly prized by sea anglers and by souvenir hunters who collect shark teeth and jaws. As a result, fully grown great white sharks are far less common than they once were.
With a top speed of nearly 55 mph, the mako is the fastest-swimming shark. It needs this speed because it feeds on tuna and mackerel - fish that are also among the swiftest in the seas. Makos have been known to attack people, and they are sought after by sea anglers because they fight back ferociously if hooked. Female makos keep their eggs inside their bodies until they have hatched, then give birth to live young.
A close relative of the mako, the porbeagle is also a swift, surface-dwelling hunter. It feeds on mackerel and herring, and also chases squid. Although sharks are normally cold-blooded, porbeagles and makos can keep their body temperature slightly higher than the water around them. This enables their muscles to contract more quickly, so they can produce a burst of speed. Porbeagles give birth to live young. They feed on their mother's unfertilized eggs before they are born.
This slender-bodied fish is Europe's most common shark. Its upper surface is sandy brown with dark spots, and its upright dorsal fin is far down its body, closer to its tail than to its head. Catsharks feed on mollusks, crustaceans, and slow-moving fish, which they hunt on the seabed in shallow water. Like other bottom-dwelling sharks, they have a well-developed electrical sense, so they can find their prey even when it is completely buried. Catsharks lay flat, square eggs with spiral tendrils at the corners. These tendrils wind around seaweed, anchoring the eggs until they hatch. The empty cases, called mermaids' purses, often wash up on the shore.
Leopard sharks are named for their dark brown spots, which look like the pattern of a leopard's fur. They have large pectoral fins and a series of hard ridges that run the length of their bodies. These common, harmless sharks swim on the seabed, where they feed on clams and other burrowing mollusks. They thrive in captivity and are often kept in marine aquariums.
This is one of the few sharks that swim up estuaries into fresh water. It can be seen far inland, in the Amazon River in South America, the Zambezi River in Africa, and the Ganges River in India. Bull sharks feed on all kinds of animals, including other sharks. They can be dangerous because they hunt where people swim.
Many sharks get excited when they sense food, but blacktips get more frantic than most. During "feeding frenzies," they swirl around in chaotic packs, competing for food. They swim near land, but rarely attack people.
This steel-blue, streamlined fish is one of the most widespread sharks in the world. It has long, curved pectoral fins, which it uses to twist and turn through the water after prey. Blue sharks have a reputation as man-eaters, and they also cause problems for fishermen by raiding nets to feed on trapped fish. They feed both inshore and in the open ocean, often hunting in packs. They can attack and overpower whales and other animals larger than themselves.
Some shark specialists believe that this fish is responsible for more attacks on humans than any other species - including the infamous great white shark. A huge and formidable hunter, the tiger shark attacks and eats almost anything, from turtles and other sharks to lobster traps and old oil drums. In 1935, one specimen caught off Australia regurgitated a human arm - it was identified by a tattoo, but the rest of the body was never found. Tiger sharks have a striped pattern when they are young, but this fades as they grow. They live both inshore and in the open sea, and give birth to live young.
The ten species of hammerheads are the world's most strangely shaped sharks. They have a typical shark shape except for their heads, which have long flaps that stick out on each side. Scientists do not know for sure what these flaps are for. One possibility is that they help the hammerhead pinpoint its prey; another is that they provide lift as the shark swims. Smooth hammerheads have been known to attack people occasionally. They often swim close to the surface, and can be found near the shore as well as out at sea.
COMMON SKATE
(Raja batis)
Skates have diamond-shaped bodies with pointed snouts, wide pectoral fins, and long, spiny tails. Young skates live in shallow water near the shore, but the adults live in water up to 2,000 feet deep and feed on fish, crabs, and other crustaceans. They reproduce by laying eggs. The eggs are covered by a tough, yellow case and are rectangular, with a horn at each corner. Common skates are an important source of food for humans, who catch them in trawler nets, which are dragged across the seabed.
With a "wingspan" of nearly 23 feet, the manta ray is the largest ray in the world. Like many of the largest sea animals, it feeds on plankton, which it scoops up as it swims. It has a fleshy paddle on each side of its head to help funnel food into its mouth. In the past, manta rays inspired many legends about sea monsters, but as far as humans are concerned, these enormous fish are totally harmless.
These fish are closely related to skates, but they have a blunter snout. They have one or two spines near the base of their tails that can inject a strong poison if they are attacked. Stingray wounds are rarely deadly to humans, but they can be painful, sometimes paralyzing part of the body until the poison has worn off. Stingrays eat mollusks and crustaceans and produce live young.
These active swimmers feed on the seabed but often come to the surface, sometimes jumping clear of the water. They have poisonous spines in their tails, which they use for self-defense. Eagle rays eat small seabed animals, flapping their fins to expose them in the sand or mud.
The Atlantic torpedo is the largest electric ray, weighing as much as 200 pounds. Electric rays are found all over the world. To feed, they trap prey in their fins and give it a powerful electric shock. Two sets of muscles just behind the head can generate a brief jolt of up to 220 volts, which is enough to stun or kill a medium sized-fish.
**All Facts and Information contained in this website can be found in the following reference materials: The Kingfisher Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia and The Complete Book of Animals from The American Education Publishers
The sawfish looks like a cross between a shark and a skate, but its most conspicuous feature is its remarkable, sawlike snout. Shaped like a flattened blade, it can be over 3 feet long and is edged with more than 50 sharp teeth. The sawfish uses its snout to attack other fish and to rake the seabed in search of buried animals. Female sawfish produce live young, whose saws are soft. Large adults can weigh more than two tons. Although sawfish look highly dangerous, there are no reliable records of them attacking people.
Roughly translated, this strange looking fish's scientific name means "multi-animal monster." This is an apt description of the ratfish, with its large, bulbous head, rabbitlike mough, and long ratlike tail. Ratfish are bottom-feeders, eating mollusks and other seabed animals. Unlike sharks, skates, and rays, the ratfish's gills are hidden by a flap of skin, a feature found more often in bony fish. Ratfish reproduce by laying eggs. Each egg is enclosed in a long slender case.
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COOKIECUTTER SHARK
PORT JACKSON SHARK
GREENLAND SHARK
WHALE SHARK
BASKING SHARK
NURSE SHARK
MEGAMOUTH SHARK
THRESHER SHARK
GREAT WHITE SHARK
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