If you thought the great white shark sounded terrifying, picture this: It’s several million years ago, and a 60-foot shark roams the sea, feasting on baleen and toothed whales, like ancestral versions of the sperm whale, because it can. Megalodon Shark Image by San Antonio Aquarium The shark blends into the seafloor and waits for prey to pass by, before opening its wide mouth and throat and suctioning food inside. Species like the tassled wobbegong are ambush predators. Wobbegongs are a group of carpet sharks that look extreme in their similarity to a shag carpet. If you haven’t heard of a wobbegong, you’re in good company. Tassled Wobbegong Shark Image by Elias Levy To make it all even creepier, the frilled shark swims around with what appears to be a grin on its face. These deep-sea sharks swallow prey whole, trapping their meal inside their mouths with those backward-facing teeth. Possibly the fuel for myths about frightful sea serpents of the deep sea, frilled sharks have a long, eel-like body that can be up to 7 feet long, a mouth full of hooked teeth, and, perhaps their most famous trait, gills that look like decorative frills. In one example, scientists found a female Greenland shark that was 272-512 years old, and even at the younger end of that spectrum, it puts these sharks at the top of the list in terms of long-living vertebrates on Earth. Scientists have figured out they can carbon date the protein inside a Greenland shark’s eyes to determine its approximate age. This cold-water species is extreme because it can live for half a century, and maybe even longer. Greenland Shark Image by WaterFrame/Alamy Dwarf lantern sharks have glowing bellies and fins, like many fellow creatures that live below where sunlight can reach in the ocean. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the dwarf lantern shark is the smallest known shark species, reaching 8 inches long at most. Like basking sharks, whale sharks are filter feeders that survive by filtering tons of tiny zooplankton from seawater. Whale sharks have distinct patterns that are like fingerprints and unique to each individual. The gentle whale shark is extreme because it’s the largest shark-and the largest fish-in the world, measuring up to 40 feet long.
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