There have been quite a few reported attacks by hammerheads and they certainly have the potential to be dangerous. Of all the sharks on this list the hammerhead, and in particular the great hammerhead shark ( Sphyrna mokarran) are the only one to have a fatal attack attributed to them. Other theories suggest it may be used to improve manoeuvering. The generally accepted use is to provide the shark with an enhanced range of vision – nearly 360 degrees. The exact purpose of the oddly-shaped head is still a matter of debate.
But they are odd, enough so that there is a Star Wars character (Mowam Nadon) inspired by this evolutionary oddity. What they all have in common though is a head shaped something like a hammer! To me this is quite strange – admittedly as everybody has heard of hammerheads I think they maybe don’t seem quite as weird as they are. There are actually quite a few species of hammerhead shark and they vary greatly in size from around 3 ft (1m) up to nearly 20 ft (6m+).
#Dwarf lantern shark license#
Hammerhead shark Photo: Barry Peters / License
Of course weirdness is in the eye of the beholder but we think the list below represents a pretty good selection of the most bizarre and strangest sharks on the planet.
#Dwarf lantern shark skin#
not bone all sharks have teeth of some description and in addition they have skin covered in modified teeth. They all have cartilaginous skeletons, i.e. And that’s not to mention the better-known fearsome marine predators we usually associate with these fish.ĭespite all their differences all sharks do still have some things in common which define them. There is a shark for every occasion plankton eating giants that reach over 50 feet (20m), tiny glow-in-the-dark deep sea sharks that can fit in your hand, sharks that can live in rivers and lakes and some that can live in the icy waters of the arctic. Dating back over 400 million years, long before the dinosaurs, the sharks have had plenty of time to diversify into a wide variety of forms, some of which are frankly a little on the weird and wonderful side. With an average lifespan of 20 to 30 years, a shark can use thousands of teeth over its lifetime.Sharks come from a family of fish containing between 400 and 500 species (depending on who you ask!). Some sharks can produce up to eight rows of teeth at once, and it takes a shark as little as 24 hours to produce a replacement tooth. The teeth in a shark’s mouth are arranged in progressive rows, and should a tooth fall out, the next one behind it moves up to take its spot, like a rotating dental Rolodex. But a shark’s teeth are attached by soft tissue to the skin covering the jaw, and easily fall out if they wear out or break. A human tooth rests in a socket and falls out once during adolescence. Technically, the serrated and pointy pearly whites just regenerate as needed. Sharks don’t come out of the womb outfitted with endless rows of teeth. Great Whites and the Whale shark do need to keep moving to breathe.Ĥ. Most sharks do not need to constantly swim to breathe or stay alive – but there are some exceptions. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the whale shark (above)-the largest fish and shark of them all-reaches lengths up to 40 feet or more, and is a migratory filter feeder whose diet consists of mostly planktonģ. It’s so little of a threat, in fact, that even fishermen discard them if caught because they’re too small. This little guy, found off the coast of Venezuela and Columbia, is possibly the smallest shark in the world and can fit in the palm of your hand, reaching a maximum length of 21 centimeters. Take the dwarf lantern shark, for instance. While those species-and others such as the blue shark or the mako shark-are apex predators that reside on the top of the food chain, there are plenty of other species of sharks that go against the misconception that all sharks are predatory.
Yet popular opinion tends to veer towards the great white or the hammerhead out of sheer fascination and fear, thus propagating the myth that all sharks are dangerous and bloodthirsty hunters. There are over 400 different species, so there’s no such thing as a typical shark. Sharks may not hunt and eat humans, but they’re all vicious predators. In fact, most of the time, shark bites are actually “ exploratory bites” in which a curious shark tries to determine if what it’s biting is food.Ģ. When an attack does occur, it’s most likely that the territorially-minded shark has mistaken the human for its actual prey (a seal, for example). While sharks may sometimes attack humans, sharks don’t seek out humans for food.
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