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Extreme Sharks
record breakers Biggest, smallest, fastest, strongest—for sharks, it’s just their nature to grow and move as quickly as they can.
Sometimes, a single shark in a species grows bigger, stays smaller, or swims faster than the rest of the members of its species. Here are some extremes and some average.
Ten biggesT sharks in The World This list shows the maximum and average sizes for each of the ten biggest sharks recorded by scientists. The list changes all the time, as bigger sharks are observed or caught and as more data is collected. There may be bigger sharks out there, but these are very big sharks! 1. Whaleshark shark 1. Whale Maximum: Average: 23 feet Maximum: 65.665.6 feet;feet; Average: 23 feet
2. Basking shark Maximum: 29.5 feet; Average: 21.7feet 3 . Pacifcsleepershark Maximum: 23 feet; Average: 13.1 feet
4. Gree nland shark Maximum: 22 feet; Average: 10.5 feet 5. Great whiteshark shark 5. Great white
Maximum: Average:14.2 Maximum: 20.220.2 feet;feet; Average:14.2 feet feet
6. Common thresher shark Maximum: 20.1 feet; Average: 11.2 feet 7. Great hammerhead Maximum: 19 feet; Average: 8.6 feet 8. Megamouth shark Maximum: 18 feet; Average: 14.8 feet 9. Tiger shark 9. Tiger shark
biggesT Tail Common thresher. Up to 52 percent of body size, 12 feet long, 800 pounds.
biggesT TeeTh Great white shark. Up to 2 inches long.
biggesT mouTh Whale shark. Up to 15 feet wide.
ThickesT skin
Maximum: 18 feet; Average: Maximum: 18 feet; Average: 9.2 9.2 feet feet
Whale shark. Up to 3½ inches thick.
10. Goblin shark Maximum: 16.4 feet; Average: 9.8 feet
biggesT eyes Bigeye thresher shark. Up to 4 percent of body length, 7 inches high. Biggest by proportion of any vertebrate other than birds. If a 5-foot-tall person had eyes this big, they would be 2½ inches wide.
Ten smallesT sharks discovered 1. Dwarf lanternshark 6.7 inches 2. Pale catshark 8.3 inches 3. Smalleye pygmy shark 8.7 inches 4. Panamaghostcatshark 9.1 inches 5. Green lanternshark 9.1 inches 6. Shorttail lanternshark 9.4 inches 7. African lanternshark 9.4 inches 8. Spined pygmy shark 9.8 inches 9. Atlantic ghost catshark 9.8 inches 10.Broadnose 10.Broadnose catshark
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Performance Records
record breakers
If there were a shark Olympics, these sharks would be gold medalists. They can’t be judged the same way swimmers and ice skaters are, but r esearchers have ingenious machines and experiments to measure a shark’s performance.
life cycle records Researchers gather as much data about shark lifespans and birth records as they can—but it’s difcult to get exact numbers because sharks don’t ll out questionnaires.
fasTesT
mosT shark PuPs (babies) in a single liTTer
The salmon shark was clocked by the U.S. Navy at 55 miles per hour. Previously, the shortn mako, which had been clocked at 44 miles per hour, was considered the fastest.
Live birth: blue shark. 135 pups.; From eggs stored in a female shark’s body: Whale shark. 300 eggs in a whale shark captured in 1996.
smallesT Whale shark PuP 15 inches long—but shark pups grow to more than 40 feet by adulthood.
smallesT PuP The pups of the dwarf lanternshark are under 2.5 inches long.
shorTesT Pregnancy Bonnetheads give birth to live pups that hatch from eggs stored in the mother’s belly after ve months of pregnancy.
deePesT-diving A Portuguese dogsh was found 12,000 12,000 feet below the surface during a study of deep-sea sh. These sharks spend most of their time below 1,200 feet, but the 12,000-foot-deep waters are probably not where it spends all its time.
longesT Pregnancy The spiny dogsh is pregnant for about two years. Right now, that is the longest conrmed shark pregnancy on record. It is also one of the longest pregnancies of any animal—only the black alpine salamander’s is longer, at three years in cold climates. But scientists are investigating evidence that other sharks, including the frilled sharks, may be pregnant for three and a half years or more. For now, the spiny dogsh holds the record for longest pregnancy among sharks.
besT hearing The silky shark has responded to lowfrequency sounds from ¼ mile away.
longesT-lived shark
longesT migraTion A great white shark named Nicole migrated from Africa to Australia and back—a journey of over 12,000 miles—in nine months. Her epic migration was recorded with a tracking device.
Scientists think the Greenland shark can live more than 200 years, based on its rate of growth, but they haven’t yet found a way to prove this.
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