What types of Sharks are there ?

Friends of SharkyJones!

Who are SharkyJones' Friends ?

In some of the other tabs you learned about the different families of sharks, you also got to see a guide to different sharks, here you'll meet the cartoon characters of some of my friends and hear some real life stories about them, rather than the scientific stuff, this is about fun not learning. You need to remember that these guys are the characters, while some information about them will be true their names and personalities are not always real for the sharks outside cyberspace, information that is fictional will be marked like this (f) with the exception of names. You'll be able to see cartoons about the lives and antics of my friends in other parts of the site, some of these might be slow if you have a slow computer though.

Sharks are wild animals and should always be treated with respect!

So who are SharkyJones' cyber friends?

-types of shark are there?

This is Crunch, he's a Great White shark, the largest predatory fish in the world. He' also one of the three most dangerous sharks (Greath White, Tiger, Bull). But truth be told, while Great White's are responsible for most shark attacks around the world, very few people actually die of white shark attacks and people are never actually eaten by these guys, why?

Well as we said above human's aren't part of any shark's normal diet anywhere, we're not from their water world. Most scientist believe human's evolved in Africa where our natural predators would be Lions, Hyenas, Leopards etc. (or if you believe in Jewish/Christian/Muslim creation theory the Torah/Bible/Quoran all agree that Lions and Hyenas would eat a man).

Human's get attacked by Great Whites normally when they are surfing especially in areas where seals are common, from below surfers look like seals. The shark must "pounce" quickly from below to grab the seal or sea lion before it can escape, if it see's the shark he can outswim it.

So human's get grabbed because they look interesting, possibly like food, they way a White shark tests this is by taste. Most of the times a human gets bitten the shark spits them out and dissappears, some scientists believe we taste bony and unappetising to them, a real sea lion has thick layers of energy rich blubber. The problem is by now the human has a lot of cuts, but the availability of good hospitals and ambulances arriving quickly on the scene means that only 1 in 4 great white victims ever die.

This is the shark that the film Jaws was about, the film was totally false, but I loved it, watch it, enjoy it and remember that its just a movie, the reality is that White sharks, the GREATEST predator on this planet is an endangered species, it would be sad if the greatest of all sharks was to die because of ignorance, when you grow up will there still be White sharks around for your kids to dream about seeing one or better diving with one in a cage ?

That is my biggest diving dream, to dive with a white shark.

Character Name - Crunch

Species - Great White Shark

Latin Name - Carcharadon Carcharias

Order - Lamniforme

Size at Birth - 3-4ft (90-120cm)

Max Length - BIG!! 24ft (7.3m!!)

Diet - Seals, sea lions, dolphins, porpoises, sharks, seabirds, turtles, bony fish, other sharks

Habitat - Coastal where water is cooler, sometimes open ocean (mediterranean) and often around seal colonies

Distribution - Worldwide in temperate seas

Chomp is called a Tiger Shark because of the stripes down the side of his body, they are brighter in younger tiger sharks, they are also spots arranged in lines, as the shark grows older the spots turn into lines that look like a tiger's stripes.

Tiger sharks have been involved in attacks on people, they are one of the three most dangerous sharks (Great White, Bull Shark and Tiger). The truth is though that if you lived in Florida you're 30 times more likely to be killed by lightening than by a shark. (Florida is somewhere that gets a quite a few shark attacks and a LOT of lightning deaths).

However , you are thousands of times more likely to be killed crossing the road to the beach than swimming at the beach.

Tiger sharks though can be dangerous especially to surfers in Hawaii where tiger sharks come close inshore towards dusk and find guys lying on surfboards with their arms and legs in the water, from below they look like turtles, favorite food of tiger sharks. Tiger sharks are one of nature's survivors, they eat different things at different times for example they turn up off remote South Pacific islands at just the right time for young Albatrosses (big birds) to take flight, often the albatrosses don't make it the first time into the air, the tiger sharks try to eat them, at which point they either take off or become food! Once the first flights are over they go back to eating fish, turtles and anything else edible.

Despite their fearful reputation, human's aren't a part of their diet, we don't live in their world, mostly they don't try to eat us unless we accidentally look like something tasty, though they might eat us if we were already dead and our bodies floating in the water, but then we look like the kind of food they eat.

To give you an idea of how uninterested they generally are in human, I was involved in a shark tagging project in Bimini with Doc Gruber. We'd put out nets in the shallow water of Bimini lagoon, we then had to swim up and down the net looking for the baby lemon sharks we'd catch. The baby sharks were then put alive into a tank in a boat and taken to a pen in the lagoon where they were measured, weighed then released into the pen and fed to recover. While the boat was away we'd be swimming up and down this net at night. On net #3 near the lagoon's entrance to the sea, right where on a previous study the Doc had been tagging big tiger sharks we would often find BIIIG holes in the lightweight nets (made for baby sharks), the holes were probably from adult lemon and tiger sharks.

They would have been passing close by us (in fact we saw some), but the sharks weren't interested in us.

Divers report a totally different attitude, they usually avoid divers, and are rarely seen, but when they are they are usually curious, passing close by but are unaggressive, seeing divers as just another large shark or fish.

Character Name - Chomp

Species - Tiger Shark

Latin Name - Galeocerdo Cuvier

Order - Carcharhiniform

Size at Birth - 20-30in (50-75cm)

Max Length - BIG!! 24ft (7.3m!!)

Diet - Just about anything, turtles, fish, seals, birds, dead meat (carrion).

Habitat - Inshore along reefs and rocks at night, offshore to 500ft in daytime, sometimes open water

Distribution - worldwide tropics.

This big fella here is called "Chomp!" he's a Tiger shark, as you can see from the box he can grow pretty big, though a maximum of 15-16ft is more likely, much bigger is rare indeed.

Chomp will eat just about anything, often just to try it, some people have called them floating dustbins, in many ways that's his (and other sharks') role, to keep the seas clean by eating the sick and dying fish, hey I didn't say being a fish was fun! In nature some animals eat other animals - this is called predation and animals that do the eating are called predators, the animals that get eaten are called the prey. The whole business of one animal eating another, to then be eaten by another animal is called the food chain. We'll talk about this more in another page.

Character Name - Limby

Species - Blacktip Shark

Latin Name - Carcharhinus Limbatus

Order - Carcharhiniform

Size at Birth - 16-27in (40-70cm)

Max Length - 5ft (1.5m) max 6.5ft

Diet - Fish, Squid

Habitat - Open sea, coastal waters, estuaries, coral lagoons, mangrove swamps.

Distribution - All tropical and subtropical waters

Note - Not to be confused with Blacktip REEF Shark, Carcharhinus Melanopterus

Interesting Fact - All carcharhinids have a type of an eyelid called a "nictitating" membrane that protects the sharks eye when it grabs its prey.

You can find limby usually inshore and up to a few miles off the coast, he often hangs around near the mouths of rivers and sometimes comes in close to beaches.

That can cause problems since it puts people and sharks in the same place at the same time, this would not be a problem if the water was clear since man is not normally a food source for sharks, we don't live in the sea, Limby wouldn't find us tasty anyway since he likes fish only.

The problem is that in the summer lots of small fish come in close to the shore to breed, lay eggs and hide from predators like Limby. Close to the shore the surf stirs up the sand so the water is murky, especially if a river brings silt down too. This is like the Alabama or Florida coast in the USA. During the summer of 2000 there was a lot of hype created by the news because several attacks happened in a short time, close to each other.

But what happened was a normal number of attacks for that area, the sharks come in after the fish. The splashing of people in the water and the flash of the bottom of their feet and hands (lighter coloured than the top) mimic a distressed fish, along comes limby, just like a cat after a piece of string (or if I wave a $100 bill in front of your nose) his predatory instincts are excited and he makes a grab for what he thinks is his fish supper.

Unfortunately it turns out to be someone's hand, he spits it out quickly because it tastes gross to him (he likes fish remember - how would you like to bite into something you think is a juicy burger but turns out to be cold slimy raw fish - with all its scales not like delicious sushi!!).

Unfortunately that person must now have a few stiches since Limby's teeth are so sharp, otherwise the person is normally OK. Most of the world's shark attacks are "bump and bite" attacks like this - simple mistakes. So Limby might bite someone, but only by accident or if you pulled his tail, a bit like a cat, I've seen him and his family several times while diving and always just said hello as he dashed off somewhere else.

This is "Limby" he's a blacktip shark. Why's he called Limby ? His scientific name is "Carcharhinus Limbatus".

He's from the order Carcharhiniform, the biggest order of sharks, with over 270 species in the order and a whole series of families in the order that scientists are constantly arguing about, we're not worried about that though.

Character Name - Bob

Species - Pacific Angel Shark

Latin Name - Squatina Californica

Order - Squatiniforme

Size at Birth - 16in (40cm)

Max Length - 5ft (1.5m)

Diet - Bottom living fishes

Habitat - Coastal sandy and muddy bottoms from near surface to 4,300ft (1,300m)

Distribution -Coldwater Eastern Pacific, (West Coast USA, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Peru and Chile)

This is Auger the whale shark.

Whale sharks are the biggest fish in the world, they are sharks and they eat plankton, some of the smallest animals in the sea.

They can grow up to 50ft and are harmless to

This is "Bob", he's a Pacific angel shark, he's called Bob, because, well there's a guy called angel in "buffy" and I couldn't think of anything better as a name and "Angel" is a cooler name for an Angel shark than "Bob" but the "buffy" guys might sue me, so its "Bob the Angel Shark".

Bob is flattened out, he looks a little like a ray, his pectoral fins are flattened out and his tail is long and thin. He uses his flat shape to hide in the sand and mud on the bottom.He waits there until a fish passes within his reach, then he bursts out and grabs the fish.

Pacific Angel Sharks are found all along the colder waters of North and South America.

There are 18 species of Angel sharks, also known as monkfish and monksharks.

British reader might of heard of them as monkfish, its sometimes sold in fish and chip shops. Don't buy monkfish though, like most sharks they reproduce slowly and we're probably overfishing them by fishing for them with huge commercial fishing boats.

Most of the species of Angel Sharks grow to about 5ft (1.5m). Usually they are no trouble to people or divers, but like most sharks Bob will bite if you try to harass him or step on him!

Bob lives anywhere from near the surface down to 400ft or more, some species of angel sharks have been found much deeper, down tp 4,300 feet!

Character Name - Auger

Species - Whale Shark

Latin Name - Rhincodon Typus

Order - Orectolobiform

Size at Birth - 18in (45cm)

Max Length - 46ft (14m)

Diet - Filter feeds on plankton and small fishes

Habitat - Ocean and Coastal zones

Distribution - Worldwide in tropical & subtropical waters

humans, often coming in close inshore to reefs. Divers often seek them out to dive with them in places like Ningaloo reef, Australia , Maldives in the Indian ocean and the Flower Gardens off the Louisana/Texas coast.

This whale shark, Auger gets his name from some friends of SharkyJones who work in Shell. One of the largest production platforms in the world is the "Auger" tension leg platform, abou 80 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

One day on the platform in the late 1990s some of the platform workers saw a big whale shark feeding around the platform. They decided that the fast rescue boat (used to rescue someone should they ever fall overboard) could use a test so 3 of them scrambled the boat and gently came within about 50yards of the whale shark and stopped.

Well, the whale shark curious came up to examine them, he was so curious that he came right up to the boat and allowed one of the boatmen to scratch his head! Some of the guys on the platform took a photo of the whaleshark.

The shark came back several times over several years, after he kept coming back and feeding, they named him Auger! Why does Auger keep coming back ? Probably because the platforms act like like huge artificial reefs. The structure provides a home for barnacles and corals, small fish follow and make their home in the structure, bringing in shoals of small fish and bait animals which hide from predators in the structures. The bigger fish then follow.

NOTE - Sharks not shown to scale - A blacktip is much smaller compared to the whale shark in real life. We'll show you comparative sizes later!

Vocabulary

Predator - An animal that hunts another animal to eat

Pounce - Ambush, jump out and attack

Blubber - A layer of fat that helps keep whales and sea lions warm.

Endangered Species - A species whose total numbers are reduced to dangerously low levels. Imagine filling a football stadium with people and that is all the people in the world, no more anywhere else. Some animals don't even have this many! All it takes is a small disaster or loss of the homes where they live and there would be no more of that animal, they would become Extinct

Plankton - Small sea creatures some animals, some plants

Production Platform - A platform in the ocean that produces oil and ships it down a pipeline to shore.

Pacific - The World's biggest Ocean, between Americas and Asia.

Reproduce - Make baby sharks

Harass - Annoy

Vocabulary

Alabama / Florida - Two of the 50 states that make up the USA, both are in the south.

Sushi - A Japanese delicacy of raw fish on rice, really nice! (if done properly)

Stitches - When someone has a deep cut a doctor must sew it together with a needle and thread!

Predator - Name for any animal that eats another animal

Prey - Name for any animal that gets eaten by other animals

Predation - The act of animals eating each other

Food Chain - How one animal eats another animal which is in turn eaten. Many plants are eaten by one small animal, many small animals are eaten by a medium animal, many medium animals are eaten by one large animal who is the top of the food chain. We'll discuss this more later

This is "Gingly" he's a Nurse Shark. Why's he called "Gingly" because his scientific name is "Ginglymostoma Cirratum". No one really knows why this is their common name, though there are several stories. He has cousins who look similar to him in the Indian Ocean, both Gingly and his cousins live on the bottom around reefs.

He likes to sleep during the day, finding a hole in the reef, by night he comes out to hunt for fish and especially lobsters, he uses all his senses, his excellent night vision, his hearing, amazing sense of smell and his ability to feel the vibrations of animals in the water through an organ down the side of his body called the lateral line.

When he finds a fish or a lobster hiding in a hole, he gets right up to the hole and puts his almost terminal mouth up against it. He then sucks water powerfully into his mouth, sucking the fish right into his mouth.

Under his nose he has two small "whiskers" called "barbules", these have taste sensors in them and help him to find food.

Nurse sharks have many rows of small teeth, made for crushing the shells of lobsters, they are normally quite gentle sharks, you can often see them lying under ledges or even in the open, they'll let divers get really close to them.

However they are responsible for quite a lot of "attacks", but they don't really attack people, what happens is that you get some diver who left his brain in the boat, see's these sharks who don't really care about him being close and the diver then thinks "hmmm! I'll have my photo taken holding the shark" or "Hmm I'll pull him out of his hole by the tail so I can have my photo taken with the shark".

Now think about a really nice friendly family dog! A tame animal! What do you think he would do if you pulled him out of his basket by the tail while he was asleep, then wrapped your arm round his neck hard ?

Well of course he'd turn around and bit you. So you can't really blame a wild animal for trying to defend itself, they just don't attack humans under any other cirmcumstances, in fact they are so nice that if handled properly many aquariums have baby nurse sharks as touch exhibits. Check out your local aquarium many big cities around the world have them. You might get to touch a baby in the aquarium, but remember they can grow to 14ft (4.3m).

Terminal mouth - The mouth is right at the end of the shark's.

Underslung mouth - The mouth is underneath the fish's head. Most sharks have an underslung mouth.

Character Name - Gingly

Species - Nurse Shark

Latin Name - Ginglymostoma Cirratum

Order - Orectolobiforme

Size at Birth - 11-12in (27-30cm)

Max Length - 14ft (4.3m) though more than 10ft (3.3m) is rare

Diet - Bottom living animals such as lobsters, shellfish, octopi and slow fishes / sleeping fishes

Habitat - Shallow inshore reefs and mangrove swamps

Distribution - Western Atlantic from NE US (Rhode Island) to Brazil, West Africa, Eastern pacific from Mexico to Peru.

This is "Grizzy", he's a Bluntnose sixgill shark, also known as a cow shark.

Why is he called "Grizzy" ? Because his scientific name is "Hexanchus Griseus", you can remember that easily since Hex is latin for 6 and he has 6 gills (think of Hexagon, 6 sides) and Griseus, latin for Grey! Many of my friends have names that are related to their latin names!

He is one of only 4 sharks with 6 gills on each side (more than the normal 5 gill slits), he also has only one dorsal fin, way down his back. Grizzy lives from the surface to deepwater and I mean REALLY deepwater. They are quite a common species, however they're not often seen except by submersibles and in the nets of fishermen, so we really don't know that much about them, their habits, their numbers etc. These guys grow pretty big up to nearly 16ft (5m), they eat all sorts of things including other sharks, rays, bottom fishes, crabs , seals. They also are scavengers, in deepwater they eat the bodies of dead animals that have fallen to the bottom. In the BBC documentary "Blue Planet" they show film of these guys eating the body of a dead whale.

Some of SharkyJones' human friends work a lot on Oil rigs, some of these oil rigs like "Auger", "Ursa" and "Mars" are big platforms in deep water around 1500-3500ft, they have their own robot submarines (called ROVs) permanently on the platform. The guys who pilot the ROVS see cow sharks quite regularly.

There is a great piece of film where a ROV approaches a big underwater wellhead on the seafloor. Through the pipe, out of the well flows oil from deep, deep underground. The oil is quite hot because its come from so deep underground, sometimes the oil can be at around 400 F / 250 Celcius. This keeps the wellhead warm (though not really hot).

In the film, as the ROV approaches the wellhead you can see a large sixgill (cow) shark sleeping on the warm wellhead, the powerful lights disturb him and he tries to swim away in a hurry, except that he's restricted by the supports around the wellhead. Once he's gotten off the bottom and we see he's about 14ft he swims right at the ROV and gives it an angry swipe before swimming off!

Character Name - Grizzy

Species - Bluntnose Sixgill Shark / Cow Shark

Latin Name - Hexanchus Griseus

Order - Hexanchiforme

Size at Birth - 24-28in (60-70cm)

Max Length - 16ft (4.9m)

Diet - Wide, dead carcasses deep down, other sharks, seals, fish, crabs

Habitat - Ocean shelves and slopes from surface to 200ft or deeper.

Distribution - Worldwide, coastal (on shelves) but also ocean plains in the right depth range.

ROV - Remotely Operated Vehicle, a robot work submarine with cameras and arms that is used to work in deep water without sending people down.

Oil Well - A hole drilled deep into the ground or the seabed, steel pipe is run into the ground to keep the hole open and smaller steel pipe lets the oil flow up to the surface.

This is "Donti", why's he called Donti and why do you start off every new shark with "why is he called this and that ? Well that's so you can try to remember his scientific name by remembering the character's name.

Actually donti belongs to a group of sharks called heterodontiforme and there are many sharks that look like him, for example the port jackson shark from Australia is his close cousin.

Donti's scientific name is "Heterodontus Francisci". This is also easy to remember as he lives in California, he can be found all up and down the Californian coast, especially around San Francisco, that's why the "Francisci" and that's why I start each shark description off that way.

Donti is one of only a few species of sharks with horns, these horns or spines are in front of each of its dorsal fins. The family name Heterodontus comes from greek meaning "mixed tooth" since they have small pointed teeth at the front of their mouths and blunt cushing teesth at the rear.

The spines help prevent them becoming a meal for Bob the angel shark who sometimes tries to eat them, the spines make him stick in this throat so Donti gets spit out again. Donti lives on the bottom where he hunts for sea urchins, small fishes and crustaceans like crabs and lobsters. He often crawls along the bottom using his big pectoral fins to "walk".

Dorsal Fin - the fins on the shark's back.

Pectoral fins - The fins on the bottom of the shark at the front, which would be where his arms were if he was human.

Character Name - Donti

Species - Hornshark

Latin Name - Heterodontus Francisci

Order - Heterodontiforme

Size at Birth - 6in (15cm)

Max Length - 4ft (1.2m)

Diet - Crabs, lobsters, small fish, sea urchins

Habitat - Among large rocks and at the bottom of kelp beds.

Distribution - Central California to Baja California

This fella here is called "Munch" , he's a Mako shark, his Scientific name is "Isurus Oxyrhincus", unfortunately Munch's name doesn't really help you remember his scientific name.

So we brought in his girlfriend, she's also a Mako shark and her name is "Issy" just so that you can remember her species' scientific name, are we good or what! ;-)

So anyway, Mako sharks are related to Great whites, they are very popular with sports anglers since they fight very hard and are the fastest shark in the sea! They're the Speedy gonzales of sharks they can swim at up to 22miles /hour (33km/h) in water, this is as fast as a speedboat, and leap 20ft out of the water!.

Makos are found all over the world in tropical and temperate waters, as far north as Canada, Scotland and even Norway (in summer) and as far south as Argentina, Tasmania and South Africa and everywhere in between out at sea. They travel a lot, one mako was tracked travelling 1,332 miles (2,128km) in 37 days, an Average of 37miles (58km) a day.

Character Name - Munch & Issy

Species - Mako

Latin Name - Isurus Oxyrhincus

Order - Lamniforme

Size at Birth - 2ft(60cm)

Max Length - 13ft (4m)

Diet - Fish, sharks, squid, whales (young or sick) and sometimes dolphins

Habitat - Open ocean and sometimes coastal waters up to 500ft.

Distribution - all temperate and tropical waters in the North and Southe hemispheres.

Tropical - Area of the world around the equator, the middle and warmest bit of the earth, warm all year round.

Temperate - seasonal area of the world, warm in summer, cold in winter.

Character Name - Pristy

Species - Longnose Sawshark

Latin Name - Pristiophorus Cirratus

Order - Pristiophoriforme

Size at Birth -11-15in(27-38cm)

Max Length - 4.5ft (1.4m)

Diet - Small bony fishes

Habitat - Continental shelf to 1000ft (300m)

Distribution - Southern Australia

This is "Pristy" he's a longnose sawshark from Australia, although there are several species of sawshark (and sawfish which are not sharks but rays) in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, Pristy lives in the temperate water of South Australia.

Pristy feeds by using the barbels (the whiskers under his nose) to detect small fish buried in the sand, then he uses his big nose, called a rostrum to stir up the bottom and whack the little fish, which it then eats.

Pristy is a sawshark, there are also sawfish. Sawfish are actually rays, they have much larger pectoral fins, half the length of their bodies and gills in the top of their heads, so sawFISH are rays that look like sharks. SawSHARKs however have gills in the side of their heads and smaller pectoral fins, much more like a shark.

Sawfish and sawsharks can also use their rostrums to help catch fish trying to escape them, along the side of the rostrum (the nose remember) is a series of teeth (actually they're not teeth but spikes made of similar stuff as your nails).

The shark can use the "teeth" down the side to turn his rostrum into a weapon to catch a fast moving fish, by moving his head sideways quickly he can sideswipe a fish faster than the fish can move out of the way, it then gets injured, he can then catch it and eat it.

Barbel - A sensing structure many fish have like a "whisker" often contains taste sensors.

Rostrum - The nose or "bill" of a sawfish or sawshark

This is "Squally" , he's a spiny dogfish. He's called "Squally" as his scientific name is "Squalus Acanthias" and he's part of an order called "squaliforme", wow does SharkyJones try to make things easy for you or WHAT!!! ;-)

Well moving on, squally is possibly the world's most abundant shark, you find him all over the world in cold to temperate waters. How long with his kind be really abundant ? Who knows, because there are lots of his kind they're fished very heavily.

Problem is that while they're fished heavily they grow slowly and don't reproduce much. Think about rats or rabbits, they have 8 or 9 babies in a litter and can have 100 babies in a year!

However sharks will only have between 2 to 20 sharks in a year or even every two years, many take 14 or more years to be old enough to reproduce, the spiny dogfish babies take 18months to two years to grow inside their mother, this is the longest gestation period known for any shark. On the other hand spiny dogfish can live to be as old as 70!!!

Character Name - Squally

Species - Spiny Dogfish

Latin Name - Squalus Acanthias

Order - Squaliforme

Size at Birth -8-12in(20-30cm)

Max Length - 5ft (1.5m)

Diet - Small fishes, squid, shrimps, squid

Habitat - Coastal from very shallow water to 2600ft (800m)

Distribution - Worldwide in Northern and Southern cool waters.

Gestation Period - The time it takes a baby shark to grow inside its mother before its ready to be born.

Abundant - Means there are lots of them.

Litter - A number of babies being born at the same time.

Dorsal fin - The fins on the shark's back.

Squally has two dorsal fins with spines in front of each, spines are something only a few sharks have today, however it was quite common in ancient sharks.

This is "Tri", his scientific name is "Triaenodon Obesus" , he's a whitetip reef shark. He's long and thin, quite a light bodied shark, ironic then that he should be called obesus (fat)? If you know why, please tell me !!!

Tri and his other whitetip reef sharks are quite common sharks in the tropics on reefs, but not in the Americas!

You can find them all through the Indian ocean, red sea and pacific throughout the tropic zone, even around central america on the pacific side, but not in the atlantic at all! I've dived with Tri's friends quite often in the red sea.

They live close to shore, usually at fairly shallow depths froom 26-130ft (8-40m). You normally find them hanging out in caves or under ledges in the day, they don't need to keep moving to breathe. In the afternoon and evening they will patrol up and down the reef, by night they get really active hunting in and out of the small holes of the reef using their thin flexible bodies to get at sleeping fish. They can get quite used to divers, sometimes coming quite close out of curiousity, though they're almost never agressive towards people unless you do something stupid first like try to grab them or hand feed them.

I've dived with quite a few, one memorable time I came around the corner of a reef in El Gouna, in the Gulf of suez, Egypt, a whitetip also came around the corner at the same time, we were face to face about 6 ft from each other. he was a bit scared turned around fast, but then calmed down and swam along the reef, he let me swim alongside him (he didn't zoom off) at a safe distance for about 8 minutes. It was memorable!

Character Name - Tri

Species - Whitetip Reefshark

Latin Name - Triaenodon Obesus

Order - Carcharhiniforme

Size at Birth -21-24in(52-60cm)

Max Length - 7ft (2.1m)

Diet - Fish, squid, octopi, lobsters, crabs

Habitat - shallow water reefs to max depth 1000ft (300m)

Distribution - Tropical all over EXCEPT atlantic

Well that's about it right now, Sharkyjones has a whole heap more friends, but we'll meet more of them as time goes on and they come and join us online. Also in the more advanced part of the site we'll see cartoons, films, videos, stories and photos about my friends.

Just to recap here are the characters again :

Auger - Whale Shark

Rhincodon Typus

Bob - Pacific Angel Shark

Squatina Californica

Limby - Blacktip

Carcharhinus Limbatus

Chomp - Tiger Shark

Galeocerdio Cuvier

Munch - Mako Shark

Isurus Oxyrhincus

Pristy - Sawshark

Pristiophorus Cirratus

Crunch - Great White

Carcharias Carcharadon

Gingly - Nurse Shark

Ginglymostoma Cirratum

Grizzy - Sixgill Shark

Hexanchus Griseus

Donti - Horn Shark

Heterodontus Francisci

Squally - Spiny Dogfish

Squalus Acanthias

Tri - Whitetip Reef Shark

Triaenodon Obesus

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