It is time to begin thinking about Shark Week. If you are not familiar with Shark Week, it is a television special put on by the Discovery channel every summer for a week. Each night during primetime, new shows are premiered. They are dedicated to sharks in some fashion, whether it is the re-telling of shark attack survivors' stories or informational programs about sharks in remote areas of the world.
In order to help boost morale for Shark Week, I thought it would be good to spread some general knowledge and trivia about all kinds of sharks. These creatures have a lot of myths circulating about them out there, and some of those can be debunked.
These facts are courtesy of Pop Culture Madness online.
- Sharks do not blink like people, but they have upper and lower eyelids
- The greatest number of shark attacks annually is in Florida, USA
- Like dogs, baby sharks are also called pups
- Sharks’ upper and lower jaws both move, unlike other animals
- A person is 1,000 times more likely to drown in the sea than they are to be bitten by a shark
- Sharks raised in captivity can grow about 10 times their size in the wild
- Shark mothers do not feed their babies; it is up to them to survive on their own
- Sharks see almost as well behind them as they do ahead of them
- Each type of shark has a different tooth based on its diet
- A fish in the water can be heard by a shark from more than a mile away
With all of this excitement, there is a lot to look forward to this week as we fill our television with tales of the great beasts of the sea. "Sharktacular" actually started the craze off with its premiere last week, but the official start of Shark Week 2016 began Sunday, June 26. The full shark week schedule, going through Sunday, July 3, can be found here. With multiple new shows every night this week, this year’s lineup is something you don’t want to miss.