When You're a Shark, You're a Shark All the Way...

What is it about sharks that inspires such fear

that swimmers race from the water when a dorsal fin’s near?

A perfect killing machine’s what I’ve heard people say.

Perhaps people are tasty and such easy prey.

We don’t swim very well and our defenses are lame

so chasing us down is a fun fun shark game.

With a movie named JAWS Spielberg scared us to death;

on the edge of our seats and holding our breath.

Let’s take a look at the truth about sharks

And find out if, sharkwise, we live in the dark.

Chondrichthyes we call them and they’re really quite old

Before we had dinosaurs, or so I am told.

fourhunnerdmillion years they been swimmin’

Huntin’ down food with those big teeth a’grinnin.

Made out of cartilage, much softer than bone,

Sharks live everywhere, and everywhere is their home

The deeps and the shallows, the cold and the hot

If the water is salty, they like it a lot.

Are there fresh water sharks? Yes, there are some

But with no saltwater at all, even they will succumb.

Some are real small; half a foot is their length.

A fifty foot whale shark is Chondrichthyes real strength.

But the scariest shark, now extinct in all lands,

Was Megalodon, teeth the size of your hands.

Sharks have no ribcage, no bones in their chest;

on land a shark’s own weight would crush it to death.

Their jaw can extend way way open wide.

It’s not part of their cranium on the inside.

They’ve rows upon rows of teeth they’ll replace

if they munch down too hard on somebody’s face.

Shark fins are distinctive and they make soup that is good

but they never swim backwards like you learned crayfish could.

Their skin is all covered with a skin that is tough.

It was used as a sandpaper, it is really that rough.

The tails are distinctive and unique to each breed,

Giving them skills and exceptional speed.

Sharks lack the swim bladder that bony fish show-

even with their hugeliver to help them, to the bottom they go.

If they ever stop swimming, they sink far below;

perpetual motion is what sharks must know.

A shark has very keen senses; eyes, nose and ears.

It has made them successful for all of these years.

They have one further sense that no hunter can wield:

they can track down their prey by electrical field.

Lorenzini’s ampullae is what they’ve been named

and sharks are the best in this magnetic game.

Some sharks have live babies; others eggs that they lay.

It varies by species, it’s too hard to say.

Fertilization internal is the way sharks make a baby.

It takes two to do it and I don’t mean to say maybe.

Sharks live a long time, from 20 years to one hundred-

I thought I’d just mention it, in case you had wondered.

Sharks are very good feeders, this is well known.

But some are near vegan, others crunch through the bone.

Some like to hunt solo, some hunt in packs,

Some dine only rarely, some constantly snack.

Some are slow swimmers at 5 miles per hour;

The mako hits thirty when he’s at full power.

Sharks are good thinkers with true thinking skill;

not mindless gorgers for the thrill of the kill.

Diverse and successful, that is the shark-

so I will close now with one last remark –

Learn more about sharks – you heard that from me-

A guy who’s no longer afraid to swim in the sea.

FYI- There are confirmed cases of shark parthenogenesis, but you try rhyming parthenogenesis with anything. If you've got something, leave it in the COMMENTS.

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