Idea # 157 – Diving in South Africa with the Great White Shark
The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is a species of shark of the family of lamnidés. With a maximal size exceeding 6 meters, it is one of the biggest predatory fishes living at present in the oceans. It possesses a rather long conical snout. The jaws of the great white shark are impressive: they are 90 cms wide for a 6 meter specimen. Its teeth, cutting, are flat, triangular, indented and can be 76 mm long in maximum. If the one tooth falls, other one of the back row (its jaws are provided from four to six rows), which is tilted inward, advances forward to the jaw to take its place. The great white shark possesses a very sensitive hearing and a sense of smell. It is capable of smelling a drop of blood in more than 4,6 million liters of water and of hearing a prey in 1 km of distance. Furthermore, under the snout, receivers sensitive to magnetic fields allow him to detect noises and vibrations of low frequencies in several hundred meters. The attacks of sharks on the man are exceptional. Nevertheless, the great white shark is the shark most of the time involved during these attacks, in front of the tiger shark and the shark bulldog, can be because the territory of hunting of the great white shark includes in particular the coastal banks where concentrate the human activities, which would lend confusion with the usual preys of the great white sharks, as the seals… Then not to stop being crisp, us, we preferred to go into a cage there!
Where is it?
Gansbaai, South Africa
Larger Map
