16+ Extreme Shark Pics That Suddenly Make Dry Land Seem Very Attractive

Not being a surfer, I'm actually not all that sure as to whether this would normally be considered a good wave or not.

But even if it's totally bodacious, it's obvious that it's also a little...crowded.

That's exactly what this cage diver is doing, which means they're likely a lot less nervous about seeing a shark in this light than we are.

More power to them.

Unfortunately, this wasn't just a friendly pass by the surfer, as then he and the shark soon struggled as it pulled him down.

According to The Guardian, Fanning escaped the shark relatively unharmed after he punched it in the back.

That's because they can live for literally hundreds of years and grow up to 16 feet in length.

According to the BBC, the oldest living example of this shark could be about 400 years old.

They were swimming along for several minutes without knowing that the shark swimming around them was anywhere close.

However, as soon as they noticed the beast shown at left in this photo, they turned around and headed in the opposite direction. The curious shark kept following, though.

At this point, the struggle is very much ongoing, as the hammerhead isn't too enthusiastic about becoming dinner.

It won't keep up for long, though.

That said, for as crazy as this warping reflection appears to us, it also makes the shark look pretty happy. So that's nice.

Free Willy definitely would have taken on a totally different tone if he was tearing a seal apart while making his famous leap.

Either way, it probably makes for an obstacle that these surfers would likely rather see now than when they're trying to do their thing.

In this case, we've got a seagull who's as woefully oblivious to this shark's intentions as we are when the gulls try and steal our ice cream cones.

It's a little tough to make out, but the child is apparently surfing very close to a great white shark.

However, the main consolation here, as marine biology professor Danny Bucher told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is that the shark seemed to be trying to swim away based on the way it had rolled onto its back.

Either it moved slightly out of position or the shark's aim was off that day, because the would-be prey ended up feeling the brunt of its nose, rather than it teeth.

Even that would probably hurt a lot, by the way.

Indeed, their undersides almost look like an entirely different face that seems a lot more devilishly gleeful about eating you.

Still, they seem to be getting along relatively well and there seem to be some fish that are brave enough to hang around them.

Maybe they're full.

You know in cartoons, someone will try and convince a ravenous beast not to eat them because they taste terrible or they're barely a snack?

This very disappointed-looking shark seems like it came to that conclusion on its own.

Considering how subtly that shark is passing through the water, it's pretty easy to see how they can sometimes take people by surprise.

After all, a fall from that fight would leave us at a major disadvantage at the best of times. A fall that surprises this many sharks, however, is almost guaranteed to be a bad time.

More specifically, they're the gills of a whale shark and make it look more like some massive machine than a big fish.

It's pretty hard to tell what this shark is even munching on, but that's not going to matter in a moment or two.

This is actually what shark skin looks like under a microscope and the reason why you're so close is that this type of skin is known as dermal denticles, or skin teeth.

That thing where you get cut if you rub a shark's skin the "wrong" way is a myth, though. You'll get some road rash at worst, unless the shark bites of course.

As we can see from this photo, even other fish know to give them a nice, wide berth.

As long as you can avoid getting jabbed by the spines around their dorsal fins, they're reputed to be relatively harmless.

For instance, this fish is about to be eaten, but its face makes it seem like it's just starting to become aware of what's happening to it when it's already halfway down the shark's throat.

After all, their fear is probably just as deep when it's not baring its teeth and looking very angry so they must be about to explode right now.

Did you know that when it's about to take a bite out of something, its jaws extend out from the rest of its face like it came out of Alien?

Isn't that a fun fact?

It still doesn't look like its mouth should be able to move like that, but its strange anatomy lets it turn even fairly large fish like this one into a bite-sized snack.

So instead of bringing up one terror of the deep with its mighty jaws wide open, they dredged up two at the same time.

Like I said, very lucky.

You'll notice that its teeth look a lot different than your average shark, which means anything that ends up between them gets pointed by a bunch of little edges rather than several big ones.

That doesn't sound better, does it?

However, if you take a close look at its mouth, you'll see that it has the same trademark teeth as the one in the previous photo, so there's no mistake here.