Sharks: S:1 E:1, “Sharks are the greatest predators in the ocean. And the Great White is the Greatest Predator of them all.”
I have spent the last week or so watching Shark documentaries on Netflix and I ended up researching sharks for a couple of days. They are one of the scariest but coolest fish in the ocean(s). They are underrated and not appreciated enough for the importance they play; inside and outside of the water. I took these science classes in high school that really broadened my knowledge about the earth and taught me how important the ocean and the creatures are to our whole ecosystem. Getting more in-depth with sharks has opened a new perspective of sea life, in my eyes.
It’s a brave thing to do to get close to sharks that could potentially see you as a threat, but all they really want is personal space and respect! Isn’t that what we all really want!?
I learned that there are about 465 known species of sharks out there and everything that one may assume about sharks is probably not entirely true.
First, all fish in the ocean have these electromagnetic fields that help them to really detect and feel for the environment around them. Sharks use this (as do humans when they tag sharks) to learn the behavior of the ocean they are traveling in.
Another interesting thing about Sharks is unlike humans who have three different colored cones (blue, green, red) so we see a broader range of color, sharks only see green, so they are partially color-blind. Basically it’s just different shades of green… Probably what the bottom of a murky ocean really looks like anyway, you think?
A few more interesting facts to take away from all of this are these:Interesting enough, some sharks have belly buttons! So when female sharks are pregnant, they have their babies through their belly buttons, I feel as though that kind of makes sense! If humans had babies through their belly buttons, I may not be that surprised… That’s a lie, I probably would be a little concerned at first, then just remember that sharks do it as well.
Although I don’t know specifically how much we use of our brain for smell and I don’t think (or necessarily believe) researchers know all the answers as well, but researchers have assumed that about two-thirds of a sharks brain is for their sense of smell. Being that their brain isn’t entirely too big, that says a lot about how they hunt and swim in the ocean. How they can even sense blood from miles and miles away. LIKE JAWS! From shark attacks to mainstream movies about sharks eating people, they are seriously over-exaggerated and pictured everywhere to be ten times scarier than they actually are! They are beautiful, independent creatures and like I said before, they really only want personal space and respect. They respect each other so we should at least respect them, right? One documentary that I watched called them “sophisticated communicators” which I think describes them PERFECTLY. They don't even prefer to eat humans, they only eat us because we become a threat or we look like sea lions... well some of us might look a little like sea lions...
When sharks don't want to eat fish, they basically command the fish to clean their teeth while they swim. It’s a tricky situation for the fish because they don’t want to be fooled. I wish I could just command people walking by me to clean my teeth for me… of only it were that easy. It benefits the fish and the sharks! They need each other! Once the shark's teeth are clean, they’ll maybe snatch one!
There are so many more interesting and crazy facts about sharks that they world may never have the privilege of knowing if we keep killing them the way we do! I say we because we are ALL responsible for what happens to this world, inside and outside of the ocean.
“100 million sharks are killed a year.”
Mostly because of us. We just kill them with fishing lines, hooks and spears….They're not good at being prey. We need to protect our wildlife like we would protect our own! Hopefully with even more love than most people have been giving each other nowadays.
Everything on this earth, living, growing, surviving and thriving matters. It all matters, whether we believe it or not and we need to protect it! The more we are knowledgeable about these topics, the more we can understand and take care!
So what type of shark would you be?
