Carcharodon carcharias is better known as the great white shark, and is native to nearly all the major oceans of the earth. Its scientific name comes out of two words from the Greek. The first is karcharos, which means sharp or jagged, and the second is odous, meaning tooth. This shark dwells primarily in the coastal waters off the United States, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and also the Mediterranean sea.
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The great white is the largest predatory, carnivore fish in the world. Its jaws are more powerful than any creature on land or sea and has earned it a lasting place in horror films. All sharks, including the great white have an unlimited supply of teeth. They may have up to 3,000 teeth in five rows at any one time. As the front teeth are naturally lost, replacement teeth rotate forward from the reserve back rows. In a great white's lifetime of approximately 30 to 40 years, they may actually grow in excess of 20,000 teeth.
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The great white shark's teeth are pointed, triangular shaped, extremely sharp, and each tooth is finely serrated. The front teeth grow up to 3 inches long. Their teeth are not attached to their jaw, but instead are moveable like items on a conveyor belt. When the great white's jaw is closed, the teeth retract inward much like a feline's claws. When it opens its jaw, the teeth rotate outward into place. The two front rows of teeth are used to seize their prey, while the back three rows are the newly developing teeth.
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A keen sense of smell is a shark's strongest guide to finding their prey. The next most powerful sense actually comes from their teeth. A great white's teeth are connected to sensory nerves in their head making them highly receptive to the movement, or even the heartbeat of any living creature. Young sharks feed on small bony fish, but as a shark grows, requiring more calories to maintain their enormous size, their targets of choice are marine mammals.
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| Pet Small Shark Fish |
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| Pet Small Shark Fish |
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| Pet Small Shark Fish |
The great white shark decreased in population after many years of being excessively hunted. In 1998 they became a protected species along the coasts of the United States of America, Australia, and South Africa. As a result fresh, new teeth are illegal to procure, but because of their dense calcium phosphate composition, fossil teeth are quite widely available, and completely legal to possess.
