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Despite the fact that sharks are predators,most of them use meat only for the purpose of "natural selection", consuming weak or sick animals. Usually these kings of depths feed on fish and plankton, and some even algae.

What is included in the diet of sharks?

Sharks eat only once in 2-3 days, and sometimesthe less often, while the size of one serving is only 3-5% of their total body weight. They hunt only in certain safe and tested areas. Sometimes sharks open up the hunt for large prey, such as fur seals, squid, seals and other large seabed inhabitants. The largest representatives can follow the trail of such a large prey as a dolphin or sea lion. Having an impressive sense of smell, this will not be difficult for them. But for a full-fledged diet, they need enough fish, plankton, plants, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, and various food waste that enter the water thanks to the person.

Which shark is the most omnivorous?

The shark-tiger is the most omnivorous shark of allknown science. It consumes everything that appears in its path, including birds, turtles, dead animals and even ordinary garbage (tires, metal, plastic, glass, etc.). Their stomach is arranged so that as a result of digestion, an amount of gastric juice is released that can digest almost any material, including polymers, rubber and even stones. When other relatives chop their food with their sharp teeth, this type of sharks swallows all the prey whole, fiercely guarding it from the rest of the inhabitants. Despite the fact that the adult shark has 2400 sharpened teeth like a razor, located in two rows, they chew food extremely badly. Consumed or falls out of their mouth, or enters the esophagus in its original form.

Do sharks eat human meat?

The question that has long been exciting the imaginationof people. In fact, sharks attack a person only when they themselves are in danger. And then their two rows of sharp teeth play the role of not a meat grinder, but a protective mechanism. Of course, there are sharks-cannibals, but they do not lead special hunting, but simply consume everything that will meet on their way. Moreover, most sharks very rarely seek prey so close to the surface of the water. They prefer to "fish" somewhere on the bottom, in quiet muddy areas. And only occasionally they emerge from the water to profit by a bird passing by.

Sharks-cannibals

The championship for unprovoked attacks is held by four species - a white shark, a bull-shark, a tiger shark and a long-winged shark.

The probability of a fatal encounter with a shark is extremely low - 1 to 3.7 million. For comparison, the deaths due to inaccurate handling of pyrotechnics are ten times more likely.

White shark, or carharodone - the leader in numberregistered attacks. According to the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH) since 1580, carcarodon has committed 272 attacks on humans, 74 of them have ended in death. The white shark is one of the largest predatory fish - its average length is 4.5 meters. Survived shots of the head of a shark, caught in 1987, whose body length is 6.45 meters. A shark-bull, or a tusked shark, divides the primacy with carhar- dron. Official cases are only 92, deadly - 26. But experts believe that they are much more, because the shark-bull lives near the coasts of Africa and India, where attacks on people are not recorded. The shark bull, despite its relatively small size - 3.5 meters, is dangerous because it often rises upstream of the rivers. The shark was found in the Zambezi, Ganges and many other African and Indian rivers. Do not confuse the bull-shark and completely harmless Australian bullish shark. The tiger shark, or leopard shark, takes the third place. FLMNH reports about a hundred attacks from the 16th century, 29 of them - lethal. The average body length is 5 m with a weight of 400 to 650 kg. The shark is common in almost all tropical and subtropical waters.

A person is not the desired food for a shark. These predators prefer more fatty meat. All unprovoked attacks are the result of an error in the definition of prey.

Closes four of the most dangerous fishwhitetip shark gray - medium-sized predator in length from 1.5 to 3 meters, most of which are no more attacks documented. The statistics FLMNH their only means 10. oceanic whitetip shark is not dangerous at the shore, but it is believed that the high seas are capable of attacking researchers and victims of shipwrecks.

Dangerous species

In addition to the mentioned, there are several more typessharks, which are dangerous for humans, although much less. These include hammerhead, shark-mako, dark-headed, Galapagos, silk, blue and lemon shark. All these species are large predators, and meeting them in their hunting grounds can end tragically, but this happens very rarely. For example, of the 17 recorded cases of hammerhead attack, according to the Philadelphia Museum of Natural History, none resulted in death.

Food

The largest fish on Earth eats the smallest marine creatures. According to the feeding method, whale sharks have a similarity to baleen whales. Their diet includes plankton, caviar, less often - small fish.

In different countries, the whale shark is called differently. In Madagascar, it is called "multi-star", in South America - "dominoes", and in Africa "Papa shilling" for its characteristic white spots.

With its huge mouth a whale shark in an hourcan absorb more than 5 thousand cubic meters of water. With the help of the gills, it exfoliates the small particles that settle in her esophagus, and then enter the stomach. For a day, an adult shark can eat more than 200 kg of feed, but it does not need such servings daily. This species of sharks can live long without food.

Habitat

These fish live in tropical and subtropicalwaters of the World Ocean. In search of food, sharks travel a lot, overcoming huge distances of several thousand kilometers. Most of the whale sharks can be seen in the coastal areas of the Seychelles, the island of Madagascar and off the coast of South Africa. As a rule, their appearance near the coast is seasonal. This is due to the spawning of local marine life. For example, from April to June, whale sharks gather in large groups near the coral reefs of Ningal, located along the western coast of Australia. All because at that time coastal waters literally swarm with polyp and fish eggs.

Studying of whale sharks

The life of whale sharks to this day remains a mystery. Until the middle of the 19th century, they were not even considered a separate species of sharks. The study of them is complicated because of the large route of their migration, and they move one by one, less often in small groups. Until now, it remains unknown where and how they multiply, what is their number. The dark body of this fish is covered with light strips and spots, which form a unique pattern for each individual, like fingerprints in humans. This method of recognition allows scientists to track migration routes of whale sharks.

The threat of extinction

Unfortunately, whale sharks are on the edgedisappearance. About their extinction speaks the fact that 10 years ago, scientists watched individuals up to 10 meters long. Now the maximum size of whale sharks is only 7 meters. These fishes have no natural enemies. The main reason for the disappearance is the mass hunting of people on these sharks. The increased demand for meat and fins of whale sharks since the 80s has increased the volume of their catch from several pieces to several hundred. This led to a sharp reduction in the number of whale sharks.

The whale shark is recognized as a vanishing species. In the waters of the Philippines, Honduras, Australia, Maldives and South Africa, hunting for it is strictly prohibited.

The recovery of the population is very slow. Sexual maturity whale sharks reach after 20 years of life. In this case, the female nurses its offspring for at least 2 years.

Jaws

Steven Spielberg's Jaws stand out. At the heart of this action-packed horror film lies the unconscious fear of a man in front of the fierce power of a cannibal shark and its thirst for blood. The film was released in 1975 and had a stunning success. The box office worldwide has exceeded the budget of the tape by almost 70 times. At that time it was a colossal amount of money for a cheap "horror film", filmed for only $ 7 million. A few years later, in the wake of the wild popularity of the first film, the sequels - Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3 (1983), Jaws 4 (1987), were withdrawn. In addition, in 1996, the failed film "Jaws" was shot in India with a similar plot, and in 1999, 2001 and 2002, the list was enlarged with a series of films with the trivial name "Sharks". However, none of them had half the success of Spielberg's Jaws.

The only type of sharks that are used in theirmovies - filmmakers - a big white shark. It is attributed to her frequent attacks on people. In films, the bloodthirstiness and gluttony of one individual, the directors are driven to the point of absurdity.

Real Stories

It is believed that the film "The Open Sea" (2003).) is based on real events. In the center of the story is a young couple who came to rest, who decided to entertain herself with an underwater excursion, but in a tragic accident the divers guides forgot them in the middle of the sea. Two tired mountain tourists stayed alone with the sea monsters in complete darkness, they did not live until daybreak. The picture somewhat surprised and frightened the viewer, and in 2010 it was decided to withdraw the "Open Sea: New Victims." The continuation of the film had nothing to do with the first part, the main line is a shipwreck, people in the water are far from the shore and a pack of sharks. Also on this topic you can see "Drift" (2006), "Surfer of Soul" (2011) and "Bloody Surfing" (2000).

Mass attacks on people did take place during the shipwreck and the fall of passenger aircraft. In all other cases, sharks do not seek to eat people.

Prehistoric sharks

"Sharks 3: Megalodon" (2002), Megalodon (2002), Mega Shark vs. the giant octopus (2009), Mega Shark vs. Crocus (2010), The Perfect Killer (2011), and The Shark Jurassic period "(2012) - talk about the dream of cryptozoologists: the existence of remnants of the population of ancient sharks, the ancestors of the great white shark in hidden underground oceans. The very idea of ​​films is very interesting, and, taking into account modern technologies and computer capabilities, it was possible to shoot worthy and breathtaking pictures. However, the films turned out to be weak, dialogues tedious, with mediocre music and graphics at the level of a third-rate computer game. It remains to be hoped that the next film - "Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark" (2014) - will please the viewer with the scale of the filming and beautiful shark fights.

In the early 21st century in the waters of the Atlantic OceanTwo teeth of megalodone were found, dated 10-15 thousand years. By geological standards this is practically "yesterday", the sensation generated a wave of interest in this extinct species.

Shark mutants

In 1999, director Renny Harlin releasedthe thriller "Deep blue sea", which became the ancestor of films about sharks-mutants. The picture tells that initially the experiment pursued a very plausible goal - to defeat Alzheimer's disease. But, as is usually the case in such films, "evil" broke out of the laboratory, and at will was a cruel sea predator with a human intellect. Thriller recouped the cost of production, but did not become one with other similar films about experiments on animals. Later such tapes were shot: "Predator Instinct" (2004) and "Shark Man" (2005), which did not acquire special prominence. Akulosinog - tells of a monstrous mutant with tentacles - a hybrid of a white shark and an octopus, although the film is so accessible and did not explain how such a creature was born. But the shark from the film "The Threat from the Depth" (2012) can boast not one, but two whole toothy heads.

Unexpected habitats

If you are convinced that you can only meet a sharkin the open sea, you are deeply mistaken. It turns out that it lives in the snow, in the air, on the ground and in grocery stores. From this category, "Tsunami 3D" (2011) is the most adequate: during a powerful tsunami, a large shopping center was flooded and sharks appeared in the waters of the supermarket. Other films with frankly ridiculous stories tell us that sharks can suddenly appear in the snow of the mountains ("Mountain sharks" in 2013), in the coastal sands ("Sand sharks" in 2011), as well as what horrific consequences bring sharks in Los Angeles, abandoned by a strong hurricane from the waters of the Pacific Ocean ("Shark Tornado" 2013).