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they appeared on earth a hundred and fifty million years before the dinosaurs they can smell blood over a kilometer away their eyes are ten times more sensitive to light than ours their bodies are covered with sensors with a sixth sense not possessed by humans they can sense the electricity of life itself shark the three hundred and seventy five known species of sharks range in size from the biggest fish in the sea to creatures small enough to hold in your hand they don't have a bone in their bodies some dive deeper than seals and whales they were the first to give birth to live young they are one of the most ancient animals on earth and one of the most misunderstood shark has taken many forms in the human imagination people are sometimes killed by sharks eaten alive some cultures have demonized them yet a few worship them as gods but until recently no one sought to understand many still believed the only good shark is a dead one what remains are its teeth and jaws and the tools and instruments used to bring about its death in Pacific island couches surrounded by the bountiful ocean the shark was seen in a different light fruit was the shark that gave us qua Hoopa she was originally a fair-haired girl who became a goddess when she married the shark god of the sea now kuba lives in a cave at the entrance of pearl harbor where she arbitrates between shark and humanity protecting both missionaries in Fiji were amazed to find Islanders who believe that to kiss a shark disarmed it and made it harmless to man twice a year sharks were caught and kissed the creatures became benign it appears the story was true a kiss disarms a shark there is another image lurking in the murky depths of our imaginations the image of nightmares a damaged surfboard the only clue left at the scene of a shark attack a whodunit investigation begins the problem is we know so little about sharks but that's changing for the last few decades scientists and cameramen have been delving into their world trying to uncover the facts to expand our limited knowledge we think we know what a sharp looks like but beyond the image fixed in our minds they come in a wide variety of colors and shapes our unanswered questions come in an equally wide variety for instance this basking shark seems to disappear in winter where does it go this one the megamouth further illustrates our lack of knowledge he discovered in 1976 a shark this size and we didn't even know it existed our observations of sharks are often crude and misinformed part of the problem lies in where we observe them being creatures of the open sea they don't always behave naturally in the cramped quarters of an aquarium faulty observation is not without precedent in this old French engraving the artist concocted a shark with a tale of a thresher and the gills of a great white it's humans who are alien in the Sharks world water is an unnatural medium for humans scientists must rely on artificial devices like this cage to help them observe and for most people what we don't understand we fear in Japanese mythology sharks are a symbol of terror so in World War two fighter planes were painted with shark jaws to instill fear in the enemy even a more popular mythology it is depicted as a villain the shark is not the only victim of our ignorance there are many creatures in the ocean we know little about and because of our fear of the unknown we've turned them into sea monsters too the octopus and the harmless ray but every day scientists are filling our book of knowledge with fascinating new facts about sharks this is a baby horn shark a bottom-dwelling species to protect its eggs from drifting with the currents and predators the horn shark lays her eggs in spiral drill like cases and deposits them in s sites or wedges them between rocks another egg-laying shark is the chain dogfish to protect her pair of eggs she attaches them to a base grinding them into position with long tendrils so they're secure and safe most shallow water and bottom living sharks lay eggs here the eggs will stay for the next six weeks as the embryos develop once hatched the baby shark swims off all sharks are on their own immediately after birth very little is known about sharks mating behavior it's hardly ever been seen the courtship ballet of these white tips is a rare sight an even rarer sight is the actual birth itself most sea creatures lay eggs but open ocean sharks like this bonnethead deliver live young a method that first evolved in sharks and has been passed on to mammals the lemon shark seeks the shelter of a coastal Lagoon to give birth the young will remain here for several years before venturing into the ocean the Sharks sophisticated diversity below the water is reflected in its many roles above the water the breadfruit is a staple crop for Polynesians and likeness of a shark is hung to protect the fruit from thieves our scarecrow half evil omen it proclaims steal from this tree and the shark will eat you in legends throughout the Pacific only the volcano is more powerful than the shark early hawaiians believed they both possess destructive and life-giving forces it was Pelle the volcano and his brother Kimora alii the shark who gave each other life the shark is also a potent symbol of fertility in the Pacific Islands it's widely held that the barren woman'll dreams about a shark gives birth to a child with magical properties and perhaps sharks do have magical properties they rarely suffer from cancer another unsolved mystery shark liver oil contains 10 times more vitamin haled and cod liver oil some shark skin has been found to contain a powerful antibiotic if you think kissing a shark is absurd think about the shark oil in some lipsticks and other beauty products and parts of their bodies have been used for food but there's nothing magical about shark fin soup sadly any use of the shark has meant its death Polynesians believe that a shark was the souls last resting place the ultimate incarnation living in such close proximity to Island and coastal people's the shark earned more than their respect it was invested with magical powers Solomon Islanders believed that charms in the shape of the creature protected their nets from damage and the shark was de found a final adoration that's why Kuo Hoopa is worshipped but Ian's before humans were even around to place shark goddesses on underwater pedestals or put shark demons on the silver screen they made their debut on the evolutionary stage well back into the dim and distant past scientists have discovered that sharks first appeared in the book of life about 400 million years ago a warm sea without fish but teeming with other life forms some fragile and delicate some pulsating with little form others drifting colorfully for Sam it was a life of floating with the currents for others it was a life of scurrying and crawling such as this trilobite van der hagfish a jawless creature evolved with a single rigid body and a crude backbone and then another with jaws and a tough skin made of the same material as its teeth many of these early creatures became extinct but their fossils provide signposts directing us towards their modern descendants artists have attempted to reconstruct them so we know what they looked like the Chimaera living deep in the oceans shadowy Twilight is the shark's oldest relative also an egg layer it's such an ancient fish it's been called a living fossil the dogfish one of the earliest sharks first swam onto the scene 200 million years ago and still journeys on so long before bony fish whales and dolphins shark was born part of its long success is its skeleton made entirely of cartilage it's lighter and more flexible than bone giving the shark more speed and maneuverability unlike other fish it doesn't have a swim bladder which led to another misconception until recently we thought sharks had to keep moving forward to survive but at rest they can pump water quite efficiently through gills which unlike single guild bony fish have no covers like dinosaurs and mammals that evolved much later sharks developed into hundreds of different species by diversifying they avoided competing for the same food and each found its own niche in the sea Sanna shark designs are familiar others coming unique patterns shapes and sizes there are even flat sharks like the bottom-dwelling sawfish shark with its tooth blade that slashes through fish and the totally flat angel shark also known as a monkfish a shark swimming is grace itself as hunters of the open sea they're perfectly adapted streamlined bodies positioning of the fins and shape of the tail and able it to master acceleration cruising and speed swimming the side-to-side sweep of the tail fin drives the shark forward but also pushes the head down to counteract this motion sharks developed large pectoral fins human design has borrowed the sharks hydrodynamics and applied it to submarines evolution expanded the Rays pectoral fins to such an enormous degree they cruise through the water like giant birds in slow motion flight millions of years after sharks perfected their streamlined design humans took it to the air even Shakespeare got in on the act in Macbeth he had witches add to their brew the moor and gulf or stomach and throat of a raven salt-sea shark but it's the shark's dorsal fin that provides the best-known of most menacing image synonymous with the killer and what's the killer's motive the same as ours when we pick up a knife and fork to eat tiger sharks are only seen in these waters when the albatross fledglings first tried to take the scope in all the ocean they know exactly where and when to come for this food like man most sharks are omnivorous with a varied diet when food is scarce they've even got an internal rationing system a way of preserving food in the stomach to delay digestion and they're famous for swallowing strange things mainly because they bite anything to see if it's edible some evidence suggests sharks don't even like human flesh in the 16th century a sailor was swallowed whole then regurgitated live seals are popular food for some of the biggest sharks once they've found their prey they strike from a shark's point of view a seal and a surfer look much the same so sometimes mistakes are made if there's one thing that exemplifies their fearsome reputation its their teeth say jaws to anybody and they'll know whose dental work you're referring to the main reason the shark's teeth remain so sharp is that they're constantly being replaced new teeth wait row upon row and move forward like a dental conveyor belt replacing those that are damaged and worn in fact their entire skin is covered in tiny teeth like chainmail different sharks have different teeth a tiny cookiecutter shark has the largest teeth relative to body size and bites cookie sized chunks from whales tiger sharks have dual purpose teeth a pointed tip impales a serrated bottom edge cuts they can bite clean through a turtle's shell the sand tiger shark has jagged doglike teeth and often swims around with its snaggletooth mouth open looking fearsome the basking shark has tiny teeth and filters thousands of tons of water an hour catching microscopic seafood with its gill rakers the mega mouth also uses its gill rakers like nets trapping food and row upon row of tiny bristles even the biggest fish in the sea the whale shark doesn't feed on flesh but uses its massive gills to sift for shrimps a manta ray is also a filter feeder it's almost like an underwater flying mouth feeding at night gulping enormous quantities of water as its samasource through the sea the classic shark image a great white feeding on flesh and feeding our feelings powerful neck muscles thrash the head side to side as the teeth slice through meat and bone but what we see in films is not usual behavior it's caused by the water being severely baited in order to attract sharks the great white unlike some sharks doesn't have protective eyelids so they roll their eyes back when biting into a victim now doubt their Swift and efficient predators they have razor-sharp teeth their gape is huge and their teeth in independently moving jaws almost jump out of their mouths striking with a force greater than an axe splitting would humans recognize the usefulness of shark's teeth ironically it's likely that more people have died from shark tooth wounds inflicted by weapons and from sharks themselves in Europe in the Middle Ages they were used to detect poison in food and wine it was thought fossilized shark teeth caused a noticeable reaction the whodunit investigation continues the motive food a case of mistaken identity the victim was on a surfboard round up the usual suspects could it have been a beluga whale or a humpback whale not likely the biggest thing Vega need is a small fish about a killer whale they eat sharks the people unlikely time to re-examine the evidence exhibit a teeth marks definitely the work of a shark but which species the horn shark no too small what about the bamboo shark no they have an alibi they only crawl along the ocean floor the wobbegong afraid not only bites when it's stepped on the history of shark surveillance has a dubious record and is filled with questionable mug shots shark observation and description improved somewhat in the 1930s when Professor Beebe and American scientists went down a thousand meters in a bathysphere he still found it difficult to observe sharks the old-fashioned way for divers to reach the underwater realm was not easy equipment was heavy and cumbersome but it did get them where they wanted to go and they did see sharks and rays even if they didn't completely understand them rays are close relatives of sharks but their spines also made of cartilage are not as flexible as those of sharks it's their fins which drive them gracefully through the water because they're flattened they have spiracles or holes on top of their heads that help them breathe and pump water through their gills they have long tails and their gill slits are under the body as opposed to the sides they come in various shapes and sizes the eagle ray is one of the fastest and speeds through the water with its powerful fins and long tail there are more than 400 species of raised some of them almost appear to have faces the manta ray is the biggest of them all in the past it's huge fins and long tail under the name devil fish like the shark it too was a victim of human misinformation and suffered from the notion that the only good way is a devil now we know the manta ray is a simple plankton eater harmless to man today computer technology is used to improve our understanding of sharks giving us a more accurate picture of their behavior radio tracking allows us to follow these elusive animals we now know some sharks dive 20 times deeper than dolphins four times deeper than sperm whales and even dive into the zone of Perpetual darkness sharks take more than radio transmitters along for the ride the Remora has a sacker on top of its head which it uses to attach itself upside down to a fish such as the shark the shark doesn't mind the Remora eats parasites from its skin remoras have even been used to catch sharks use a fish to catch a fish the Melanesian Islanders of contries attract sharks with rattles made of coconut shells to the shark it sounds like a struggling fish and possible prey the caller believes the shark is good-natured enough to be caught and even though he kills it he believes the shark to be his spiritual equal no Shuman is a shark's equal when it comes to the sensitivity to sound they sense vibrations along their entire body through tiny pores directing them toward the prey before they even see it beyond the five senses we know a shark possesses another all life generates electricity special jelly-filled pores on the Sharks snout unable to pick up the weakest of signals even a heartbeat these electrical sensors guide them towards their prey I see and color and have an acute sense of smell armed with this array of super senses targeted prey has little chance of escape angel shark probably uses its eyes to catch food the Hammerhead sense of smell and electric sensors are spread over the broad surface of its head it acts like a metal detector sweeping the ocean floor for fall as we become armed with more information about sharks we're better equipped to identify our surfboards suspect the field has been narrowed down to the five sharks known to attack people the tiger shark the blue shark great white the oceanic whitetip and the ball the only species known to swim up rivers and tolerate fresh water the size and shape of the bite narrows the field to one this was the attacker a blue shark nearly identifying the culprit doesn't sweep away our fear of sharks nightmare images still linger despite our scientific advances humans continue to fear and fight sharks in order for us to swim at the edges of the Sharks domain we net thousands of miles of features and destroy enormous amounts of marine life in the process in one way or another we kill over a hundred million sharks of all kinds in one year while they only kill on average seven people a year we have far more likely to be killed by lightning than a shop despite a growing body of knowledge the ocean still remains an alien realm is that why the shark is still demonized because we don't know enough to shake ancient fears the Polynesian fisherman tells a different story we never fish for sharks the shark is a person with us we are related he is our brother they are familiar to us we never eat them we adore them and they don't hurt us we swim with them and they don't hurt us unlike the bony fish the shark cannot swim backwards its pectoral fins don't allow it as it swims forward into an uncertain future its survival will depend on people's understanding and acceptance whatever we may think the shark ancient creature of the Seas the supreme marine predator swims on neither maligne nor benign perhaps the goddess who still protects the shark the outcome of eons of successful evolution you