A shark has to find a meal in the sea before it can eat. It has a very good sense of smell. Sharks are sometimes called swimming noses. Sound helps too. They hear well with ears inside their heads. They can pick up the sounds of fish splashing.

What a shark eats depends on the kind of shark. Tiger sharks eat almost anything, like fish, turtles, birds and even garbage. Young white sharks eat bottom fish, smaller sharks, rays and schooling fish before they move on to seals. Adult great whites mostly hunt seals and sea lions.

White shark teeth are broad and triangular, and they are serrated. A shark loses teeth all its life and grows new ones to take their place. Sharks can shed thousands of teeth in their lives, and some may shed 50,000 of them.

The whale shark gets its meal in a very different way. As of November 2026, it is the biggest fish in the sea. It is often about 18 to 32 feet long. It eats very small sea animals called plankton. Its teeth are tiny and play little part in feeding.

Words to know

• plankton: tiny sea animals
• serrated: with jagged edges
• triangular: with three sides