Discover the Deep: Top 13 Fun Facts About Fascinating Frilled Sharks

1. Swiping Left on Evolution

If the frilled shark swam into the dating world, it'd definitely be swiping left on the evolution app – and its ancient BFFs would be swiping right back: This seemingly Jurassic-era fashionista, affectionately dubbed a "living fossil," boasts a genetic lineage that stretches back about 100 million years, making their 25-year lifespan seem like a mere blip in the cosmic dating pool.
Source => reuters.com

2. Maternity Champs of the Sea

Talk about a long pregnancy: these oceanic baby-daddies have one whale of a time waiting for their little ones! The frilled shark deserves a round of applause for patiently enduring a gestation period of up to three and a half years, culminating in a litter of 2 to 15 pups, and not even having the luxury of a set breeding season to schedule it all. How's that for commitment?
Source => thoughtco.com

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=> Fun Facts about Great-White-Sharks

3. Serpent Style Hunting

Frilled sharks might be the ocean's own snake charmers, hypnotizing their dinner under the moonlit sky with the grace of a slithering serpent before going in for the kill: These deep-sea predators undergo diel vertical migration to hunt near the surface at night, chomping down on cephalopods, smaller sharks, and bony fish with their 300 needle-like teeth and flexible jaws, which they use like a deadly eel-inspired lunge.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

4. Birth of a Fashion Trend

While it may not strut down ocean runways or grace the covers of "Fish-ion" magazines, the frilled shark gives underwater haute couture a whole new meaning: its distinctive gill slits are bedecked with frilled, fringed edges, serving as both a stylish and functional means to absorb oxygen from the water—earning it a fabulous namesake among ancient sharks.
Source => oceana.org

5. Undersea Dentist

Frilled sharks: the misunderstood, slithering, undersea dentists, equipped with a thousand tiny hooks to ensure their toothy clients never wriggle free. Factual feast: these peculiar sea creatures not only have a unique, lizard-like appearance, but also the longest gestation period among vertebrates – over 3.5 years, producing a modest litter of just two to ten offspring measuring 40 to 60 centimetres long.
Source => divetimor.com

6. Relative to Tooth Fairy

Long thought to be the tooth fairy's nightmare-inducing cousin, the frilled shark is a creature with a grin that John Steinbeck once eloquently described as "the great fields of protoplasm" for its sheer abundance of chompers: but fear not, bipedal land dwellers, for these eerie sea dragons are rarely inclined to snack on humans and pose no significant threat to our species.
Source => balisharks.com

7. 80 Million Years of Style

When it comes to fashion, these wardrobe-averse swimmers never needed an upgrade: Frilled sharks have remained virtually unchanged for over 80 million years, making them one of the oldest living species of shark on the planet.
Source => lewisrhystwiby.wordpress.com

8. Nursery Yolk Tales

Step aside, storks, and make room for frilled sharks in the nursery tales: These peculiar deep-sea dwellers give birth to live young, sidestepping the placenta and relying solely on yolk sacs to sustain their growing bundles of fins and gills until they're ready to take on the big blue world themselves.
Source => oceana.org

9. Frill-Thriller Serpentine Swims

These sharks put the "frill" in thriller with their serpentine moves and star-studded smile: Frilled sharks hunt by curling their tails and propelling themselves like snakes, while boasting over 300 teeth arranged in more than 20 rows for an unforgettable bite.
Source => americanoceans.org

10. Jawsome's the New Awesome

They say jawsome's the new awesome, but frilled sharks took it quite literally: their jaws can protrude forward like a snake, allowing them to gobble down slippery prey without risking damage to their many needle-like teeth.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

11. Real-Life Jurassic Park

Step aside, Jurassic Park: we've got a real-life ancient aquatic thriller right under our noses! Meet the frilled shark: a living fossil from a family of ancient sharks dating back to the Jurassic era.
Source => fishingbooker.com

12. Toothy Tetris Tactics

In a world where terrifyingly toothy predators lurk beneath the surface and peckish navigators must twist, turn and literally bend over backwards to find a meal, the frilled shark plays its own game of toothy Tetris: This sinuous shark boasts a unique hunting method, bending and lunging to capture and swallow prey whole with their long, flexible jaws, as it feasts on cephalopods, smaller sharks, and bony fish, even devouring surprisingly large victims during its nightly rise to the ocean surface for dinner.
Source => en.wikipedia.org

13. Move Over, Dracula

Move over, Dracula - there's a new toothy terror lurking in the deep: The frilled shark's thin, curved teeth can measure up to a staggering 6.5 cm in length, making it one of the longest-toothed sharks on the planet, and a superbly equipped predator for snagging soft prey such as squids and fish in the deep sea's murky depths.
Source => sharkwater.com