UCSB Science Line
Sponge Spicules Nerve Cells Galaxy Abalone Shell Nickel Succinate X-ray Lens Lupine
UCSB Science Line
Home
How it Works
Ask a Question
Search Topics
Webcasts
Our Scientists
Science Links
Contact Information
Could a shark swallow anything without biting it?
Question Date: 2015-11-04
Answer 1:

Fun question! I think they could. Sharks don’t really chew their food. They need to bite big things so that they can tear off a piece that’s small enough to swallow. If something were really small, they could just close their jaws around it and swallow it without it touching their teeth. At about 28 seconds into this video, I think you can see one doing that:

video of sharks

There are many kinds of sharks. Some sharks don’t really have teeth they can bite with. The basking sharks and whale sharks take in plankton without biting it. This video is made for kids younger than you, but it has some cool videos of different types of sharks:

types of sharks

If you are interested in questions like these, you may want to study marine biology.


Answer 2:

No, for most sharks, although whale sharks (that eat plankton) never bite anything.



Click Here to return to the search form.

University of California, Santa Barbara Materials Research Laboratory National Science Foundation
This program is co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation and UCSB School-University Partnerships
Copyright © 2020 The Regents of the University of California,
All Rights Reserved.
UCSB Terms of Use