🦈 Stay Sharp and Fin for Yourself 🦈

Sharks are fish. There are over 500 species of shark.  They vary in size from the smallest dwarf lantern shark to the largest whale shark.  The dwarf lantern shark is about the size of a human hand while the whale shark can be up to 12 metres in length.  Goblin sharks can be a bright pink colour. Hammerhead sharks use their hammer-shaped heads to pin stingrays against the seafloor! Most species bear living young. 

Sharks live in most ocean habitats.  They can be found in tropical coral reefs, in the deep sea and even under the ice in the Arctic Ocean. There are even sharks around the UK.  Basking sharks, blue sharks and Greenland sharks are found around the UK.  A basking shark can grow up to 11 metres and weigh up to 7 tonnes. That’s the size and weight of a double-decker bus. 

A Shark’s body is made of cartilage instead of bones like other fish. Sharks live in water so they have to use their gills to filter oxygen from the water. Most sharks have a muscular, upturned tail, pointed fins, a pointed snout and sharp triangular teeth.  Sharks must swim all the time to keep from sinking because they do not have a swim bladder. A swim bladder found in bony fish is an internal gas-filled organ that can expand and help a fish to control their buoyancy.

Most sharks are cold-blooded but great white sharks are partially warm-blooded.  This enables them to move faster when hunting prey.  Many Sharks have several rows of teeth and they can lose and replace thousands of teeth in their lifetime. All Sharks have a sixth sense that helps them hone in on prey. This Ampullae of lorenzini is found on the shark's snout. Sharks use it to sense the electric fields emitted by the animals in the surrounding water.   By eating fish they help create a balance in the food chain.

Killer whales are the only animals that prey on the white shark. But many sharks are accidentally caught in fishing gear and others are caught deliberately for their fins.  Shark fins are a delicacy in Asia.  Their ocean home is in danger too. Climate change is warming the water and this affects both the shark population and their prey.  Plastic pollution is also spoiling their home and could cause entanglement or the plastic could get ingested.  Over 140 of the 500 species of sharks are on the vulnerable or critically endangered list.  We can all do our part to reduce the use of plastic.   

Here are the sayings I found on the bookmark called Advice from a Shark.

• Take a Bite out of Life

• Stay Active

• Keep Moving Forward

• Have a Healthy Appetite

• Fin for Yourself

• Live Fiercely

• Stay Sharp! 

Here are my comments about each of these sayings.

• Take a Bite out of Life - Makes me think of trying something new to eat.  We have to take a bite to decide if we like it or not.  The same applies when we are trying something new.  Take action.  Take a bite.  Get started.

• Stay Active - Move More, Sit Less

• Keep Moving Forward - Keep taking steps forward.  Keep reaching for your goals.

• Have a Healthy Appetite - Eat a healthy diet.

• Fin for Yourself - Fin instead of Fend - love this play on words.  Fend for yourself means to take care of yourself. 

• Live Fiercely - To live fiercely is to choose goodness and pursue it intensely.  Engage fully in all your activities. If you are taking on a challenge or a course, take action and work on it until you complete it. 

• Stay Sharp! - Prevent your brain from being slow.  Exercise your brain with activities that make you think a lot.  Be a lifelong learner. Keep learning something new.

Have a great day everyone!  🦈 Stay Sharp and Fin for Yourself.  🦈

#livinglifeabundantly  #publishedauthor  #travellingtuesdays