Hello there creepy fact fans! If you know me (and you don’t, because you have no idea who I am), then you know there is nothing I like more than a creepy fact – I love that shit! So seeing as it’s Shark Week, I felt inclined to find a few creepy facts about the most hardcore predator in the seven seas.
SHARKS!
via Flickr/ Hillary Certain shark species’ babies will eat another embryo in the womb. Ya know, for nutrients!
via Wikimedia/ Albert kok Bull sharks are rare among sharks in that they can survive in both salt and fresh water. Thus they have been sighted far inland, having followed rivers into populate areas.
via Wikimedia/ Albert kok Sharks are older than trees!
The earliest species of what we would call a tree, the Archaeopteris, existed around 350 million years ago. Sharks? They’ve been swimming around for 400 million years!
via pixabay/ Tabeajaichhalt Sharks like hanging out next to the shore and most attacks on humans occur in only 6 feet of water.
via Wikimedia/ Carraore1 California has (relatively) high numbers of shark attacks due to government protections on sea lions, seals, and sea otters. Sharks are simply hunting their natural prey and, unfortunately, humans enjoying a day at the beach get caught up in the hunt!
via Flickr/ Barry Peters Sharks are generally solitary hunters but the scalloped hammerhead shark undertakes its annual migration as a group. So basically an army of sharks (and hammers).
via publicdomainpictures/ Tammy Sue A shark bite exerts a staggering 40,000 per square inch of pressure. For comparison’s sake, we can manage about 286!
via NOAA The Greenland Shark can live to be over 500 years old, has a large amount of urine in its bloodstream, and has been known to feed on polar bears. If that wasn’t enough, it also allows a certain deep-sea bacteria to feed on its eyeballs due to the bacteria’s propensity to let out a luminous glow, attracting the shark more prey.
via Wikimedia/ Pater van der Slujis Don’t want to attract a shark? Go swimming alone. Sharks are attracted to large groups of people so, unlike Jaws. that solo skinny dip is relatively danger-free.
via Max Pixel Sharks will roll their eyes back, The Undertaker style, to protect them as they attack.
via Karen Carr The prehistoric Megalodon shark was roughly 60 feet long and seven inch long teeth. But then you already knew that.
via pxhere Sharks can sense blood in the water. They are extremely sensitive to electricity changes in their environment, and blood changes the conductivity of water.
via pixabay/ chopin92 The largest shark is the whale shark, which can grow to over 60 feet long.
via pixabay/ SarahRichterArt The main cause of death from shark attacks on people is bleeding. This is because sharks can’t chew, so they just rip bits off you until you die.
via Oceana I hope you enjoyed the facts and have a new found respect for the big fishy bastards; because respect is what you should have. Despite what the sea lion controlled media would have you believe, sharks are an incredibly important part of our global eco-system and one of nature’s most incredible creatures. Unfortunately, their very existence is under threat due to massive overfishing, as conservation company Oceana explains:
“An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year, with fins from up to 73 million sharks being used in shark fin soup, which means 200,000 sharks are killed every day. Breaking that down even further, that’s more than 8,300 sharks every hour, 139 sharks a minute, or two sharks every single second.”
Enjoy Shark Week but let’s just make sure we can keep having them for decades to come!
Sharks are pretty f%*#ing terrifying. Bears are pretty f%*#ing terrifying, too. What do you get when you combine the two? A predator only the ghost of Steve Irwin and Dwight K. Schrute could save you from.
Check out our ‘Bearshark’ tee while it’s still in stock RIGHT HERE!
