The true cost of marine conservation often falls on vulnerable coastal communities. Can a ‘beneficiary pays’ approach protect both endangered species and the communities dependent on them?
A great hammerhead shark’s two eyes can be 3 feet apart on opposite sides of its skull.
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Emma Kast, University of Cambridge; Jeremy McCormack, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main e Sora Kim, University of California, Merced
Megalodon, the world’s largest known shark species, swam the oceans long before humans existed. Its teeth are all that’s left, and they tell a story of an apex predator that vanished.
I’ve seen whale entanglement in shark nets firsthand, when a humpback whale calf drowned in one a few years back. It was terrible.
Roaming the ancient seas eons ago, the megalodon shark eviscerated its prey with jaws that were 10 feet wide.
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Frilled sharks haven’t changed for about 80 million years! And while they may look a bit like snakes from a distance, they are actually much more similar to other sharks close up.
Researchers have discovered that great white sharks are more social than previously thought. Using specialized tags, they tracked six sharks and found that some stay close to each other when hunting.
Sharks can sleep with their eyes open.
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How sharks sleep has been a mystery. Some species of shark need to swim continuously to push water over their gills and breathe. New research is shedding light on how sharks sleep.
Cartilage makes this scalloped hammerhead shark’s body flexible.
NOAA NMFS
As authorities grapple with the best way to respond to the tragedy, it’s worth remembering all shark mitigation measures come with both merits and drawbacks – and none is a silver bullet.
Sharks exhibit astonishing diversity, and this extends to how they reproduce. Experts still don’t know why some species have placentas and others don’t.
The Liopleurodon was a pliosaur of the Jurassic period.
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It’s usually good news when a once-scarce species starts to recover – unless it starts getting in humans’ way. An ecologist explains how science can help predict unwelcome encounters.
The ‘SharkSmart’ approach, adopted by the Queensland government, aims to educate people to take responsibility for reducing shark bite risk by changing their own behaviour. But can humans change?
Marine Biologist, South African National Parks (SANParks); Honorary Research Associate, South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity