Ways to use this list
- Fact first: read one fact from the list below without the name and let the class guess the shark. Then spin to choose the next fact to read out.
- Ocean topic cards: each child spins a shark and makes a card with a drawing, its length, where it lives and its fun fact. Pin them up as a shark wall.
- Playground size line: spin a few sharks, look up their lengths and chalk them out to scale. A dwarf lanternshark fits in a hand; a big whale shark is longer than most classrooms.
- Aquarium day out: spin three sharks before you go and see which ones you can find on the tank signs.
- True or false: spin, read the shark's fact aloud, but sometimes change one detail. The others decide whether you are telling the truth.
Press Spin the wheel, tap the game or press the Space bar. Change the list in the box as you
like: add your own, delete what doesn't suit you, or write *2 after an entry to give it double the
chance. The game buttons switch the same list to a duck race, hat, claw machine and more.
The full list (33 entries)
- Whale shark – the biggest fish in the world, yet it eats tiny plankton
- Basking shark – the second-biggest fish, often seen off British coasts in summer
- Great white shark – can grow to about 6 metres and senses prey from far away
- Tiger shark – named after the dark stripes of young ones; eats almost anything
- Bull shark – can swim from the sea far up rivers into fresh water
- Great hammerhead – uses its wide head to find stingrays hidden in sand
- Scalloped hammerhead – gathers in big schools around underwater mountains
- Shortfin mako – the fastest shark, famous for leaping out of the water
- Blue shark – slim and bright blue; swims huge distances across oceans
- Oceanic whitetip – long, rounded fins with white tips, lives in the open ocean
- Thresher shark – stuns small fish with a whip of its very long tail
- Nurse shark – rests on the seabed and sucks up prey like a vacuum cleaner
- Lemon shark – yellowish skin; pups grow up among mangrove roots
- Blacktip reef shark – black-tipped fins, often seen in shallow lagoons
- Whitetip reef shark – rests in reef caves by day and hunts at night
- Grey reef shark – a common hunter on coral reefs of the Indian and Pacific oceans
- Sand tiger shark – gulps air at the surface so it can hover in the water
- Zebra shark – striped as a baby, covered in spots as an adult
- Leopard shark – a spotted shark of the shallow bays of California
- Epaulette shark – can walk on its fins between rock pools at low tide
- Tasselled wobbegong – a flat carpet shark with a frilly beard for camouflage
- Angel shark – flat like a ray, it buries itself in sand to ambush fish
- Horn shark – lays spiral-shaped egg cases that wedge into rocks
- Port Jackson shark – an Australian bullhead shark with crushing back teeth
- Small-spotted catshark – common around Britain; its egg cases are called mermaid's purses
- Spiny dogfish – carries its pups for up to two years before they are born
- Greenland shark – swims slowly in icy seas and may live for more than 250 years
- Goblin shark – a pink deep-sea shark whose jaws shoot forward to grab prey
- Frilled shark – an eel-like deep-sea shark with frilly gill slits
- Megamouth shark – a huge-mouthed plankton eater first discovered in 1976
- Cookiecutter shark – bites neat round plugs out of much bigger animals
- Bluntnose sixgill shark – has six gill slits on each side instead of the usual five
- Dwarf lanternshark – one of the smallest sharks, about 20 cm long, and it glows
Questions people ask
How many kinds of shark are there?
Scientists know of more than 500 species, and new ones are still found, mostly in the deep sea. They range from lanternsharks about 20 cm long to the whale shark, which can grow longer than a bus.
Is a shark a fish?
Yes. Sharks are fish that breathe through gills, but their skeletons are made of cartilage, the bendy material in your nose and ears, not bone. Their closest relatives are the rays and skates.
Are most sharks dangerous to people?
No. Most species are small, shy or live far from swimmers, and bites are very rare. A few large sharks, such as the great white, tiger and bull shark, account for most of them. Sharks have far more to fear from us: people catch tens of millions every year.
Do sharks really keep growing new teeth?
Yes. Sharks have rows of teeth that move forward like a slow conveyor belt, so a lost tooth is soon replaced. Some sharks get through thousands in a lifetime, which is why fossil shark teeth are so easy to find on some beaches.