Best Shark

The whale shark is a filter-feeding carpet shark, notable as the world's largest living fish and for seasonal feeding aggregations in countries such as Mexico.

The tiger shark is a large tropical requiem shark, notable for its striped juveniles, broad diet, and role as an apex predator around islands such as Hawaii.

The great white shark is a large lamnid predator found in temperate oceans, notable as the largest living predatory fish and a frequent subject of tagging studies.

Helicoprion is a Permian shark-like chondrichthyan named in 1899, famous for its spiral tooth whorl in the lower jaw.

The bull shark is a stout requiem shark, notable for tolerating fresh water and for recorded movements far up rivers in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

The shortfin mako shark is a fast lamnid predator, notable for high-speed open-ocean hunting and for being among the fastest known sharks.

The scalloped hammerhead is a large Sphyrna hammerhead, notable as a Critically Endangered species first named by Griffith and Smith in 1834.

The epaulette shark is a small Australian and New Guinean carpet shark, notable for walking over reef flats with paddle-like fins and for its black shoulder spots.

The basking shark is a plankton-feeding lamniform shark, notable as the second-largest living fish and for slow surface feeding in the North Atlantic.

The lemon shark is a yellow-brown requiem shark, notable for shallow nursery habitats and decades of field research around Bimini in the Bahamas.

The zebra shark is a tropical Indo-Pacific carpet shark, notable as the only living member of Stegostomatidae and for juveniles that are striped before becoming spotted.

The megamouth shark is a rare deepwater filter feeder, notable for being discovered in 1976 off Hawaii and for its unusually large, protrusible mouth.

The common thresher shark is Alopias vulpinus, a large mackerel shark notable for using its long tail to strike schooling fish.

The blacktip reef shark is a small Indo-Pacific reef shark, notable for patrolling shallow coral flats with conspicuous black markings on its fins.

The sand tiger shark is Carcharias taurus, notable for its protruding teeth, worldwide temperate range, and ability to gulp air for near-neutral buoyancy.

Cretoxyrhina mantelli is the Late Cretaceous 'Ginsu shark', named by Agassiz in 1843 and known as a major predator of the Western Interior Seaway.

Ptychodus is a Cretaceous lamniform shark genus with broad crushing teeth, recognized in 2024 from complete Mexican skeletons.

The bonnethead is the smallest Sphyrna hammerhead, notable as an omnivorous shark that can digest seagrass as well as animal prey.

The oceanic whitetip shark is a pelagic requiem shark, notable for its broad rounded fins and severe global decline after heavy longline bycatch.

The grey nurse shark is the Australian name for Carcharias taurus, notable as one of the first legally protected shark species in New South Wales in 1984.

The blue shark is a slender pelagic shark, notable for long migrations across temperate and tropical oceans and one of the widest ranges among sharks.

The nurse shark is a bottom-dwelling Ginglymostoma shark, notable for tolerating research handling and ranging from Rhode Island to Brazil.

The leopard shark is a patterned houndshark of the Pacific coast of North America, formally named Triakis semifasciata in 1855.

The smooth hammerhead is a temperate-water hammerhead shark, notable for its unnotched head margin and Linnaeus description in 1758.

Aquilolamna milarcae is a Late Cretaceous shark-like elasmobranch from Mexico, described in 2021 and notable for manta-like wing-shaped fins.

Cladoselache is a Late Devonian shark-like chondrichthyan from North America, often cited among the best-known early shark forms.

The whitetip reef shark is an Indo-Pacific reef shark, notable for resting in caves by day and hunting reef fish and octopus at night.

The salmon shark is a North Pacific lamnid, notable for preying on Pacific salmon and maintaining elevated body temperature in cold subarctic waters.

Carcharodon hastalis is an extinct mackerel shark named by Agassiz in 1843 and often treated as part of the great white shark lineage.