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The first shark-like chondrichthyans appeared in the oceans 400 million years ago, [1] developing into the crown group of sharks by the Early Jurassic. [2] Listed below are extant species of shark. Sharks are spread across 512 described and 23 undescribed species in eight orders. The families and genera within the orders are listed in ...
For decades, many ichthyological works, as well as the Guinness Book of World Records, listed two great white sharks as the largest individuals: In the 1870s, a 10.9 m (36 ft) great white captured in southern Australian waters, near Port Fairy, and an 11.3 m (37 ft) shark trapped in a herring weir in New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1930s. However ...
Common name Genera Species Description Alopiidae: Thresher sharks: 1 3 [14] Thresher sharks are large sharks found in temperate and tropical oceans around the world. The common name refers to its distinctive, thresher-like tail or caudal fin which can be as long as the body of the shark itself. Cetorhinidae: Basking sharks: 1 1
Greenland sharks have the longest lifespan of any known vertebrate, estimated to be between 250 and 500 years. [4] They are among the largest extant species of shark, reaching a maximum confirmed length of 6.4 m (21 ft) long and weighing over 1,000 kg (2,200 lb).
Whale sharks' lifespans are estimated to be between 80 and 130 years, based on studies of their vertebral growth bands and the growth rates of free-swimming sharks. [9] [10] [11] Whale sharks have very large mouths and are filter feeders, which is a feeding mode that occurs in only two other sharks, the megamouth shark and the basking shark.
Megalodon teeth can measure over 180 millimeters (7.1 in) in slant height (diagonal length) and are the largest of any known shark species, [29]: 33 implying it was the largest of all macropredatory sharks. [35] In 1989, a nearly complete set of megalodon teeth was discovered in Saitama, Japan.
The tiger shark is a member of the order Carcharhiniformes, the most species-rich order of sharks, with more than 270 species also including the small catsharks and hammerhead sharks. [4] Members of this order are characterized by the presence of a nictitating membrane over the eyes, two dorsal fins, an anal fin, and five gill slits.
Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sailfish, and sunfish. In Orkney, it is called hoe-mother (contracted homer), meaning "the mother of the piked dogfish". [5] The basking shark is a cosmopolitan migratory species found in all the world's temperate oceans.