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Sharks

The fin of a great white shark being tagged by researchers off the coast of Southern California.

Record Number of Great Whites Tagged in Southern California

Researchers working in Southern California tagged 38 sharks this year, more than triple last year’s total

A swordfish photographed underwater southwest of Tampa, Florida.

New Research

Shark Stabbed Through the Heart and a Swordfish Is to Blame

Recent research documents the latest instance of a strange but not unheard-of phenomenon in which swordfish impale sharks with their bills

Researchers with OCEARCH caught a 17-foot-long great white shark on the morning of October 2.

Researchers Catch and Tag 17-Foot ‘Matriarch of the Sea,’ a 50-Year-Old Great White Shark

The OCEARCH team named the shark Nukumi, the Mi’kmaq people’s word for ‘grandmother’

The squalene industry kills around 3 million sharks each year, and if squalene is used in a vaccine to treat everyone in the world, up to half a million sharks will be killed.

500,000 Sharks Could Be Killed in the Race to Produce a Covid-19 Vaccine

Vaccine developers seek a compound called squalene produced in shark livers

A female megalodon model, based on a set of teeth discovered in the Bone Valley Formation in Florida, hangs in The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

How Cannibalism in the Womb May Have Made Megalodon a Titanic Terror

A new analysis of shark body size offers clues as to why the 50-foot-long prehistoric shark grew so large

Some groups stuck together for four years.

New Research

Grey Reef Sharks Hunt With the Same Group for Years—but Don’t Call Them Friends

They’re more like reef proximity associates

Not much is known about the megamouth, which was first observed by scientists in 1976. A new specimen (not pictured above) has traveled to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, where researchers will study it to learn more about its behavior and life cycle.

Smithsonian Voices

Rare Megamouth Shark Arrives at the Smithsonian

Studying and eventually preserving the megamouth will help researchers learn more about the puzzling species

A white tip reef shark swims above the reef near the Gambier Islands, French Polynesia in 2018

Reef Sharks Are in Serious Danger of Extinction

Researchers found that the sharks are ‘functionally extinct’ in 20 percent of coral reefs surveyed

A whale shark off the coast of Australia.

Whale Sharks Have Tiny Teeth on Their Eyeballs

The ‘dermal denticles’ probably help protect the eyes of these gentle giants, scientists say

A great white shark pictured off the coast of Mexico in 2006

Prehistoric Great White Shark Nursery Discovered in Chile

Young sharks grew up here millions of years ago, scientists say

Greg Lecoeur won the title of Underwater Photographer of the Year 2020 for his Frozen Mobile Home, a playful snapshot of seals circling an iceberg.

Dazzling Display of Seals Wins Underwater Photographer of the Year Award

French photographer Greg Lecoeur triumphed over more than 5,500 submissions from hundreds of artists around the world

Laboratory experiments suggest the tooth-like scales of the puffadder shyshark can be degraded by acidifying oceans

Acidifying Oceans Could Corrode the Tooth-Like Scales on Shark Skin

A laboratory experiment hints at another sobering consequence of acid-heavy ocean waters on marine life

Cool Finds

These Newly Discovered Shrimp Call a Whale Shark’s Mouth Home

Found in a whale shark off Okinawa, hundred of amphipods were living it up in the giant fish’s gills

Artists reconstruction of Phoebodus sharks.

Cool Finds

This Ancient Shark Looked Like an Eel and Swallowed Its Prey Whole

Scans of a rare 360-million-year-old shark skeleton shows the beasts used hunting techniques similar to modern sharks and fish

None

Megalodon May Be Extinct, but There’s a Life-Size One at the Smithsonian

A 52-foot, life-size model of a Carcharocles megalodon shark is now on display in the National Museum of Natural History

The newly identified American Pocket Shark was first discovered in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

This New Shark Species Looks Like a Tiny Sperm Whale

The 5.5-inch-long Mollisquama mississippiensis—one of only two pocket shark specimens known to science—also glows in the dark

Tiger sharks appear to prey on migrating songbirds that fall into the ocean during autumnal storms

Baby Sharks Do (Do, Do, Do, Do, Do) Eat Songbirds

A survey of 105 tiger sharks’ stomach contents revealed the remains of 11 land-based bird species

Cool Finds

North Carolina’s Famed Shipwrecks Are Now Home to a Shark Conservation Research Study

Unwitting citizen-scientists discovered evidence that vulnerable species return to the same ships, which could help in their recovery

Orcas kill great white sharks, then eat their calorie-dense livers.

New Research

Great White Sharks Are Completely Terrified of Orcas

A new study shows the apex predators will flee their hunting grounds and won’t return for up to a year when killer whales pass by

Until now, it was thought that great white sharks avoid kelp forests.

Watch Rare Footage of a Great White Hunting Seals in a Kelp Forest

A new study dispels the belief that the sharks are too large to maneuver through dense kelp growths

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