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- 354 species of shark have been listed by the FAO,
ranging from 15 centimeters (squaliolus
laticauda to 15 meters (the harmless whale
shark)
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- 35 species known to have attacked man at least
once, and a dozen habitually do so.
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- The biggest Great White ever caught was a female of
6.4 meters, which was caught off Cuba in 1945. It weighed 3312 kilos
and its girth reached 4.5 meters; several lorries were needed to tow
and transport it. A 10 meter specimen is also said to have been
captured, but neither photo nor expert account exists, only
subjective statements. The record specimen are always female, since
in the sharks, females have larger measurements than males.
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- The power of the shark's jaw is phenomenal; the
highest recorded with a specially designed apparatus was 3.75 tonnes
per Cm for a shark of 3 meters. That of a 6 meter Great White
Shark much be more spectacular, but it has never been possible to accurately
measure it.
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- The fastest shark is the Mako, which can reach 50
km/hr (the fastest of all fish is the sail fish. at 113 km /h, followed
by the swordfish at 95 km/h). Man's speed in the water is farcical,
even compared with the slowest-swimming fish.
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- The growth rate of sharks varies according to
species, age, and maturity: from 33 millimeters per year to 30
centimeters: generally speaking, it is always slow.
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- The record for attacks in a single place is at
Durban (South Africa), in 1957, with 7 attacks(5 in which resulted
in death) within 107 days.
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- In august of 1960, when a boat capsized at the
mouth of the Komati, on the coast of Mozambique, a school of sharks
caused carnage among the survivors, mutilating 46 out of the 49
people.
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- The speed of a tooth replacement in the flesh
eating shark is of the order of 7-8 days for the smallest
species and from 6 to 12 months for the largest ones, but their
replacement is immediate at the time of an attack.
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- The shark can smell in dilutions of the order of 1
part to 500 million parts of water, and extracts of flesh of the
grouper fish of the order of 1 part to 10,000 million.
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- In the case of certain large sharks, each seminal
vesicle contain 20 to 25 liters of seminal fluid, or 40-50 liters of
sperm for a large male.
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- The interval between insemination
and the emergence of the young shark is 10 to 22 months( one
of the longest gestation periods in the animal world).
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- All the sharks are capable of going
at least 6 weeks without eating; the record observed in an aquarium
is 15 months (by one of the species known as the "swell
sharks").
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- men's most feard predator non the
less constitutes on his food sources;306,125 tonnes, or 10,000
Semi-Trailers, was the tonnage of sharks caught for food purposes in
1984.
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- Fishing is one of the means
of studying sharks, and a means of tagging them on the dorsal fin. In
this way in California, 60,000 sharks (of 47 different species) were
captured and tagged in a 23 year period. Nineteen hundred were found
again, including one 6,500 kilometers from California and another 19
years later.
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- The biggest fish ever caught on a
sport- fishing line was a Great White Shark of 1221 kilos, off the Australian
coast., on a 60-kilo line. The biggest ones broke the lines.
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- The oldest ancestor of the shark
was discovered as a fossil, the "cladoelache", 350 million
years old-this is 100 million years before the dinosaurs appeared; man
first appeared 3.5 million years ago.
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PRECONCEIVED
IDEAS |
Certain falsehoods concerning Sharks |
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- Sharks attack in order to
feed. The image of the insatiable shark that swallows
everything it encounters in order to assuage a hunger that is never
satisfied is one of the most false. Over 1500 cases of shark attacks
on on men ,50-75% of these attacks have nothing to do with
nutrition.
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- Hunger does not exist in sharks.
This is untrue. The shark is capable
of very long periods of fasting, and it seems that it may have
periodicity in its eating habits. During these "eating
phases" it is evident that we can talk of "hunger",
and attacks then will be different in their determination and
development.
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- The shark is a primitive animal.
The shark is far more
sophisticated than believed it to be 20 years ago. Besides sense
organs that are outstanding and unique in the animal world, the size
of its brain is closer to that of birds (proportionately speaking)
or of certain primitive mammals than to that of any other fish. The
exceedingly sensitive character of the olfactory organs in the
shark, reflected at brain by highly developed olfactory lobes. Such
a creature would not have come through 350 million years without
appreciable evolution.
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- The shark have a very poor
eyesight. Not only can a
shark see contrasts well, but it has good night vision thanks to a
histological structure peculiar to nocturnal animals. It can even
see colors.
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- The sharks pupil is at all times
widely dilated ,adding to
its terrifying appearance. This is false: the iris has an ovular
shape and the pupil can be dilated and constricted very
rapidly. Some species possess a third eyelid which closes at the
moment of the attack.
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- The shark does not eat dead
bodies. In 1950, Mr warne,
an Australian fisherman, found the barley digested right hand of a
human being in a stomach of a 1.5 meter Tiger Shark. The police
identified it as belonging to Peter Szot, who's body minus the right
hand had been recovered on the beach eight days earlier, with a
bullet in the head. Mr. Szot had not committed suicide after having
lost his hand but before.
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Highlights from
the survival manual of the US Army-1973 |
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"The shark is a cowardly fish
which moves about slowly, easily frightened by surprises in the water, noise, movement
and unusual shapes. This last point alone would be enough for a shark
not to attack man" |
Best ways to combat
a Shark according to this manual: |
- Strike the shark on its soft and vulnerable snot or
in the eyes.
- Stab it in the gills
- Swim outside the line of charge, catch hold of a
pectoral fin as it passes, and ride for as long as you can hold your
breath, and if you can manage to cling to it, the shark might lose
some of its vice and regain its natural cowardice.
- If you carry a knife. open up his stomach. On
opening the stomach you cause water to enter- that will kill it almost
instantly.
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The above absurdities were the
instructions Us Army pilots and marines were suppose to immerse themselves
before their missions. |
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