… being a curious sort of fellow, I sometimes find fairly remarkable things.

And being a SearchResearcher, I wonder about these things I find.

Not long ago a friend of mine took this photo of me on a dive, hanging onto the rail of a wreck at 50 feet.

As you can see by my terrified expression, I’m not especially worried about this guy (even though it’s somewhat larger than I am).

I did a bit of research about these sharks (before I got into the water, I should add) so I knew what to expect.

Along the way, I learned a few additional things about other kinds of fish that I want to pose as Search Challenges.

So today’s Challenges are:

1. What kind of shark is right in front of me? Am I crazy? Should I be worried about this apex predator? (If you don’t have enough information from this photo, here’s another. Do you have enough information now to figure it out?) By the way, please don’t tell my mother about this…

2. Speaking of kinds of sharks, one of the strangest sharks in the ocean today seems to be a holdover from the Cretaceous period. What kind of shark is that? Just from that description, can you figure out the genus and species?

3. While we’re on the subject of large marine predators, I remember reading that there was an order of now-extinct marine reptiles that dominated the seas during late Triassic and the Jurassic periods. These giant predators were warm-blooded, and sometimes suffered from the problems of coming up too fast from the briny deep. What kind of animals were these? And how do we know they suffered from too rapid ascents?

4. If you’re really into the topic, for extra credit, in the picture above why does this shark’s eye seem to have a white crescent moon in it? (No, it’s not a cataract, nor is he bug-eyed.) It’s a normal sharky thing. But what’s that white thing called?



As always, be sure to tell us HOW you found out the answer to the Challenge. We all want to learn from your brilliant search behavior!

Search on… with sharks!