Sharks are considered apex predators of the marine world. Sitting at the top of the food chain they don’t have too many worries – or then again maybe they do. Sharks at all stages of life, from egg to adult, can potentially be attacked. Animals that attack sharks include snails, whales, other sharks, and more.
Animals That Prey Upon Shark Eggs
Some sharks give birth to live pups while other shark species lay eggs that many animals find highly nutritious. Obviously sharks have few defenses when they are still developing in an egg and this opens them up to predation by animals as varied as the snail and the baboon. David Cox and Thomas Koob describe their study of shark eggs in their paper “Predation on elasmobranch eggs” published in a 1993 edition of Environmental Biology of Fishes. The duo studied shark eggs from museums and eggs they incubated in the wild – in both cases they frequently found bore holes in the eggs. Their conclusion was that marine snails were preying upon the shark eggs. Further, the BBC writes on their Wild Africa page in “Baboons eating shark eggs” that baboons in Cape Peninsula National Park will forage for shark eggs at low tide.
Sharks Eat Their Own
Occasionally larger sharks will eat their smaller brethren. According to the “Biological Profiles” page on the Ichthyology at the Florida Museum of Natural History website, the remains of nurse sharks have been found in the stomachs of lemon sharks and tiger sharks. Meanwhile, the smalleye hammerhead, which reaches a size of 98 cm (38.6in) as an adult, is sometimes eaten by bull sharks and other hammerheads. The bull shark, a true apex predator, does not often have natural predators however it has been known to fall prey to tiger sharks, sandbar sharks, and other bull sharks.
Whale Attacks on Sharks
The great white is perhaps the most well known of all shark species and it truly deserves its reputation as an efficient predator. However even the great white is susceptible to attack. The Florida Museum of Natural History’s 1997 report “Peter Pyle’s First Hand Account of Killer Whale/ White Shark Encounter” describes how an orca took down a great white. Biologist Peter Pyle believes the killing may have been for food, or to protect the orca’s calf, or as a competition over another food resource. The same museum reports another whale attack in “Sperm Whales Attack Megamouth Shark” describing how in 1998 three sperm whales attacked a megamouth off of Indonesia for unknown reasons.
Sharks’ Most Deadly Predator
For the most part, large sharks such as great whites have few natural predators. Although whale attacks may occur on occasion it is unlikely that they are common. Unfortunately, humans are sharks' most deadly predator. According to CNN’s Lisa Ling in her December 2008 article “Shark fin soup alters ecosystem” roughly 100 million sharks are killed each year for shark fin soup. Decimating the shark population is not only bad for the sharks but can throw off the whole ecosystem as populations lower on the food chain are allowed to grow – potentially setting off a chain of further effects. According to the Shark Foundation/ Hai-Stiftung website one of every four shark species is considered endangered by the World Conservation Union.
Megan Jungwi - Megan Jungwi started her freelance writing career in March 2009. Although new to online writing Megan has long been passionate about the ...
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