Discription Slide 1-8

SharkKnights is an international organization of teachers and their students, from the elementary to high school level. These teachers made it their goal to educate their students about the true plight of sharks, their true situation and chances of survival, and present these battered animals in their right light. Picture: blue shark.

Video: Caribbean reef shark.

Sharks belong to the first vertebrates that ever populated our oceans. “Vertebrae” refers to the presence of a spinal cord. Besides the vertebrates there are also non-vertebrates like insects, sea stars, squid and others.

The first sharks appear more than 400 million years ago. These first sharks did not look like the ones today, however. They mostly had a an outer protection, made out of bony material. This protection then got broken up into tiny pieces, eventually leading to the scales shark have today.

The first dinosaurs appeared shortly after on our planet. They dominated earth for many millions of years but the sea was still ruled by sharks. Despite that there were marine dinosaurs (so called ichthyosaurs), they never were that abundant to challenge the sharksʼ dominance.

Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) was the ultimate land predator, ever. This species arose at a time when most modern sharks (= the ones we see today in the oceans) already existed. T. rex is used here as a marker of time, and size.

The first human-like creatures appeared very late in the earthʼs history. Every shark species that swims in todayʼs oceans was already present when the first humans started to walk on land.