The Sharks— Part One 295 



The upper jaw . . . shoots out, the inner teeth become erect in both jaws, 

 and the snout forms a grotesque pointed hood over this projecting fang-lined 

 cavity of horror, which can snap shut with bone-shearing force. 



In Australia, Gray Nurse sharks have been seen lying on the bottom 

 close to shore in neat rows in what Australians call "nurse grounds." 

 Great schools of Gray Nurses are also seen in Australia as they chase 

 shoals of fish toward the beach, there to be cornered and slaughtered. 



The menace of the Gray Nurse is far from American shores, but it 

 is somewhat less than comforting to realize that this brute has a very 

 close American relative— the Sand shark (Carcharias taunts Rafinesque, 

 1810)— which is found in great numbers along some of the most popular 

 bathing beaches of the East and Gulf Coasts of the United States. 



It is w^orthy of note here that this is one of the variations in the 

 reputations of sharks thought to be of the same species. The common 

 and presumably "harmless" Sand shark of the U.S. Atlantic Coast is 

 presumed to be the same as, or almost identical to, the much-feared 

 Gray Nurse of Australia. The reputation of the former has been benign in 

 U.S. waters until recently; that of the latter in Australia has always been 

 fearsome. As far as the authors have been able to determine, there is not 

 yet positive identification of the two species. With all of man's fears and 

 fables about sharks from earliest history, it would seem time for some 

 critical investigation to be undertaken to produce a classification that will 

 have some reliability. 



Sand Shark 



(Carcharias taunts Rafinesque, 1810) 



(Also Known as Sand Tiger Shark, Spanish Shark) 



Voracious and quick to use its stiletto-like teeth, yet at times sluggish 

 and torpid, the Sand shark has a Jekyll-Hyde reputation. 



Fishermen know it as a shark with a wicked disposition when it is 

 trapped in a net, but along the Atlantic Coast it has never been regarded 

 as a menace to swimmers. Christopher W. Coates, director of the New 

 York Citv Aquarium, says of the Sand shark, however: "They can bite 

 like hell and we don't trust them." 



A Sand shark ( Carcharias taurus ) . 



Courtesy, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 



