SIZE
Great whites average 12-16 feet long (3.7-4.9 m) long, weighing about 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg). The biggest great white shark on record was 23 feet (7 m) long, weighing about 7,000 pounds (3200 kg). Females are larger than males, as with most sharks. Shark pups can be over 5 feet (1.5 m) long at birth.

DIET AND FEEDING HABITS
Young great white sharks eat fish, rays, and other sharks. Adults eat larger prey, including pinnipeds (sea lions and seals), small toothed whales (like belugas), otters, and sea turtles. They also eat carrion (dead animals that they have found floating dead in the water).

Great whites do not chew their food. Their teeth rip prey into mouth-sized pieces which are swallowed whole.

A big meal can satisfy a great white for up to 2 months.

TEETH
The great white shark has 3,000 teeth at any one time. They are triangular, serrated (saw-edged), razor-sharp, and up to 3 inches (7.5 cm) long.

The teeth are located in rows which rotate into use as needed. The first two rows are used in obtaining prey, the other rows rotate into place as they are needed. As teeth are lost, broken, or worn down, they are replaced by new teeth that rotate into place.

SENSES
Shark's primarily use their sense of smell followed by their sensing of electric charges. The shark's other senses, like sensing changes in water pressure, eyesight, and hearing, are less important.

The great white's nostrils can smell one drop of blood in 25 gallons (100 liters) of water. (Shark nostrils are only used for smell and not for breathing, like our nostrils. They breathe using gills, not nostrils.)

The sensing of minute electrical discharges in the water is accomplished by a series of jelly-filled canals in the head called the ampullae of Lorenzini. This allows the shark to sense the tiny electrical fields generated by all animals, for example, from muscle contractions. It may also serve to detect magnetic fields which some sharks may use in navigation.

The great white is the only type of shark that will go to the surface and poke its head up out of the water. No one knows exactly why it does this; perhaps it is to see potential prey such as surface-dwelling sea lions.

GREAT WHITE SHARK ATTACKS
Most great white attacks are not fatal. Great whites account for about 1/2 to 1/3 of all 100 annual reported shark attacks. Of these 30-50 great white attacks, only 10-15 people die.

SOCIAL GROUPS
Great whites are usually solitary animals but are occasionally spotted travelling in pairs.

HABITAT
Great white sharks are found near shore along most of the temperate (not very hot and not very cold) coastlines around the world.

DISTRIBUTION
Great white sharks have been observed along the coastlines of California to Alaska, the east coast of the USA and most of the Gulf coast, Hawaii, most of South America, South Africa, Australia (except the north coast), New Zealand, the Mediterranean Sea, West Africa to Scandinavia, Japan, and the eastern coastline of China and southern Russia.

It has been recently discovered that great white sharks can jump out of the water. They jump into the air from deep water in order to catch fast-swimming seals

REPRODUCTION
Great white sharks reproduce via aplacental viviparity; they give birth to 2-14 fully-formed pups that are up to 5 feet (1.5 m) long. Like all sharks, fertilization of the eggs occurs within the female. The eggs hatch within the female and are nourished by eating unfertilized eggs and smaller siblings in the womb. There is no placenta to nourish the babies - they must fend for themselves, even before birth. They swim away from the mother immediately after birth, there is no maternal care-giving.

LIFE SPAN
No one knows the life span of the great white shark. Some people estimate it to be about 100 years, but this has not been proven.

POPULATION COUNT
Great whites are decreasing in numbers and are rare due to years of being hunted by man. They are a protected species along the coasts of California, USA, Australia, and South Africa.

GREAT WHITE SHARK CLASSIFICATION

Kingdom Animalia (animals) Phylum Chordata SubPhylum Vertebrata (vertebrates) Class Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) Subclass Elasmobranchii (sharks and rays) Order Lamniformes Family Lamnidae Genus Carcharodon Species C. carcharias

GREAT WHITE SHARK ACTIVITIES
A coloring/information print-out about the great white shark.

A simple coloring print-out about the great white shark.

A first grade shark addition activity. Solve the 1-digit addition problems, then do letter substitutions to answer a shark question.