How much does a shark weigh: the rating of the most-most

Bloodthirsty and huge monsters of the ocean - this is the image of a shark, replicated by the cinema and literature. How much does a shark weigh and are these representatives of the ocean fauna really dangerous?

Sharks - inhabitants of the sea depths

The name is a collective image. An ordinary person immediately imagines a fish from horror films. But sharks are a neat order of cartilaginous fishes, which includes about 450 species. Features of these animals is the torpedo shape of the body, a large heterocercal fin on the back, a lot of teeth on both jaws. There are among the sharks as exceptional predators, and peace-loving plankton eaters. The sizes of sharks are different, the length of the body varies from 17 centimeters to 20 meters. And how much does a shark weigh? It depends on its size. Inhabitants of this orderly inhabit the seas of the seas and oceans, but there are those who live in fresh waters. We will get acquainted with extremely large species and find out how much the biggest shark weighs.

1st place: whale shark

Therefore, she is called that, the biggest among her friends. Representatives of the species live in the northern and southern seas. And it is the northern ones that are much larger. Whale sharks reach a body length of up to 20 meters and weigh up to 20 tons. Caught in 1949 near the island of Baba, the individual was 12.5 meters long and weighed 20 tons. It is a gray-brown giant with white spots, having a unique location for each individual. These sharks live for about 70 years, and the most surprising is that they are filter feeders. This means that they eat, filtering the water and filtering the plankton. For a day such a fish pumps 350 tons of water and eats 200 kilograms of plankton. In the mouth of the whale shark can fit up to 5 people, the jaws are covered with 15 thousand small teeth. However, she never attacks people, and many scuba divers even manage to touch it. Whale sharks are slow and little studied. Their number is quite small, so the species is listed in the Red Book.

2nd place: elephant shark

The championship in size with a whale shark divides the elephant. This fish is up to 15 meters in length and weighs up to 6 tons. A species that is on the verge of extinction. The shark really looks like an elephant with sunken cheeks because of its widely spread mouth with a diameter of up to 3 meters and with a lot of small teeth. Huge size (another name of this shark - giant) makes the fish inactive. They are also filter feeders, but unlike whales they live in packs. Approaching such a flock is dangerous: the sweep of the tail will easily kill the scuba diver.

3rd place: white shark

Next in our rating is the shark of the herring family, the representative of the most dangerous animals on the planet is the white shark. This is exactly the monster from the horror films. For 30 years of her life, she grows to 6.5 meters in length, and 300 located in three rows of sharp teeth are updated every three months. The shark itself is gray, but its belly is white. This is an exceptional predator: in the diet, both fish and marine mammals. Representatives of the species live in all oceans, except for the Arctic. The greatest number of cases of attacks on humans belongs precisely to these predators of the depths. How much does a large white shark weigh? It's a moot point. The recorded case is a shark measuring 6.4 meters long and weighing 3 tons. She was caught in 1945, and while this is the largest white shark.

4th place: tiger shark

The most widespread in the world ocean is a representative of sharks. Its name got for the dark streaks on the body. Predator, not disdainful attack on man. In the West Indies it is considered the most dangerous representative of marine life. How much does a tiger shark weigh? According to statistical data, up to 1.5 tons with a body length of up to 5.5 meters. At this size, it can hunt at a depth of 3 meters and, surprisingly, does not live in captivity. This is a dangerous omnivore predator. What did not they find in the stomachs of tiger sharks? This and license plates of cars, and household items, and even a chicken coop with bones and feathers of its inhabitants (was a precedent)!

5th place: polar shark

The size of this representative of the genus is not so great in comparison with the leaders of the rating: body length - up to 5 meters, weight - about 1 ton. These active predators live in the northern seas and the Arctic Ocean. Another name is Greenland or ice. Deep-sea species, a large proportion of the food ration of which are octopuses. The meat of this shark is saturated with ammonia due to the absence of a urinary system. But Icelanders favorite dish is "hakarl" - rotten meat of ice shark. It is interesting that in the process of radiological examination of the lens of the eye, scientists have discovered that a shark 5 meters long has an age from 270 to 512 years. Today, it is the longest-lived inhabitants of the seas, which is due to low metabolism.

The biggest shark has died out

Paleontologists presented fossils of the extinct ancestor of modern sharks - megalodon, the largest predator of all time. Megalodone lived 23-25 million years ago. About its size can be judged by the fossils of the teeth and several vertebrae. The estimated length of this predator is up to 12 meters. How much does the megalodon shark weigh, of course, we know purely theoretically. But the calculations show 42 tons.

Features of the growth of sharks

Like all fish, sharks grow throughout life. For example, it is proved that the ice shark grows by an average of 1 centimeter per year. On other representatives, these studies have not been carried out, and we still have to study this area. Sharks do not live long in captivity - it's a fact. That is why their study has progressed only with the development of radio-electronic methods. Ichthyologists and oceanologists only accumulate research data on the lives of these amazing predators. But thanks to the already existing developments, we can find out how much the shark weighs in tiger, white or whale.

So, now we know the giants of modernity among the sharks. But numerous, however, officially unconfirmed reports indicate that sailors have seen larger representatives of shark. And some scientists argue that megalodons are still floating in the unknown depths of the seas and oceans. Probably, we will never know how much the biggest shark in the world weighs, because we have not caught it yet.