It’s Shark Week and Washington Has a Favorite Shark, Really?
If you are around my age, you might have been a teenager when Jaws came out. It was the summer of 1975 and I saw it in a theater in of all places, Del Mar, California. That's a coastal town just north of San Diego. Talk about heightening the fear factor for a 16 year old.
We are all fascinated by sharks and the interest spikes during Shark Week, a Discovery Channel series now in it's 10th season.
The show is so successful, searches for information on sharks soars when the episodes air. Google searches show which species are of the most interest in each state and surprisingly, it's not always the sharks we think of as killers like Great Whites, tiger or bull sharks
Washington's Favorite Shark is the Greenland Shark
Never heard of it? Greenland sharks are considered the longest-living vertebrate on earth and can live up to 400 years according to Sharks.org and National Geographic. The primitive looking Greenland shark can grow to 23 feet in length and weigh up to 1.5 tons.
15 other states were keenly interested in Greenland sharks as well. It may be due to simple curiosity because I don't think people in Nevada or Nebraska are likely to encounter a Greenland shark!
- Greenland sharks don't reach sexual maturity until they are 150 years old
- The first photograph of a live Greenland shark wasn't captured until 1995
To read the full report on the favorite shark species by state and other Shark Week factoids like;
- Whale sharks mouths are five feet wide but their throats are the size of an orange
Check out A Look at the Most Popular Sharks From Coast to Coast from report from BetMGM
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Gallery Credit: Stacker