Great white shark Facts

About the great white shark

Those triangular teeth are replaced constantly. A huge, fatty liver, which can top a quarter of the shark's weight, keeps it buoyant and stores energy, and the species is partly warm-blooded, so it stays active in cold water. Great whites roam tropical and temperate seas worldwide, near coasts and far offshore, with the biggest numbers off both coasts of North America, southern Africa and Oceania.

Seals, dolphins, squid and fish, other sharks included, are on the menu, and whale carcasses get scavenged too. Even so, orcas sometimes hunt them. White sharks usually travel alone but may gather at feeding sites, where they use body language to sort out who is in charge. Pups hatch from eggs inside the mother and are then born live, and juveniles stay in shallower water hunting smaller prey.

Did you know?

• Great white sharks are also called white sharks, white pointers or great whites.
• Only the whale shark and the basking shark are larger sharks than the great white.
• The great white's closest relatives include the salmon shark, the porbeagle and the mako sharks.