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Beche De Mer
(Sea Cucumber)

Also known as White Pointer, great white shark and White Death.

The great white shark is distributed widely in temperate and subtropical oceans throughout the northern and southern hemispheres, though it prefers temperate waters.

A streamlined, greyish-white body with white below.  It has a fairly straight back and unlike most other sharks, the upper lobe of the tail is not much larger than the lower.  It also lacks the pronounced extension of most other species which gives it great speed through the water.  A distinguishing feature is the large triangular and serrated teeth in both jaws.

It is the largest dangerous shark in the world.  It lives off the southern Australian coast, from southern Queensland round to Western Australia, but has not been recorded in Tasmanian waters.  It grows to a length of about 12 metres. It will eat almost anything, including seals, dolphins, other sharks and ships garbage.  A roamer of ocean waters, it is rarely seen in estuaries.  Neverless, it is a known man-eater. A shark with large, serrated triangular teeth, a crescent-shaped caudal fin, and minute second dorsal anal fins.

Body fusiform, moderately stout; caudal with distinct keel. Snout relatively short and bluntly conical. Teeth large, erect, triangular and serrated; relatively more slender in low jaw; juveniles less than 200 cm with more slender teeth (sometimes with lateral cusplets and lacking serrations on some cutting edges). First dorsal-fin origin over pectoral-fin inner margins. Second dorsal-fin origin in advance of anal-fin origin; second dorsal and anal fins minute. Caudal fin crescent-shaped, without a secondary keel below extension of caudal peduncle keel. Tooth count 23-28/21-25. Total vertebrae 172-187; pre-caudal 100-108.

Dorsal surface blue-grey to grey-brown, often bronzy; white ventrally; boundary between these tones is mostly abrupt. Ventral tips pectoral fins dusky; a dark spot may be present at the pectoral-fin axil.
Born at about 130 cm and attains 600 cm. Males mature at about 350 cm and females at about 400 cm.

Cosmopolitan but mostly anti-tropical in temperate seas. Probably throughout Australian waters, but more common in the southern Queensland to North West Cape (Western Australia). Normally found over the continental shelf and often close inshore; recorded from the surface to 1280 m.

Large adults feed mainly on seals, whales and dolphins, but also take fish and other sharks. Younger great white sharks feed mainly on fish. Females mature at 4.5 to 5 metres and attain greater lengths and weights than males, which mature at about 3.0 metres. Minimum ages at maturity have been estimated to be 11 years for females and nine years for males.

Despite its high-profile media image, little is known of the biology or behaviour ot this shark. It appears to be relatively scarce to most other widely distributed species, being most frequently reported from south Africa, the Great Australian Bight, northern California and the north eastern United States. Like other mackerel sharks, it has a heat-exchanging circulatory system enabling it to maintain body temperatures higher than that of the surrounding seawater. Aspects of reproduction remain an enigma as only two pregnant females have been recorded in contemporary times. Presumably oviphagous, a pregnant female from Japan had 7 pups. The diet of specimens smaller than 300 cm consists mainly of a variety of teleost and elasmobranch fishes. Marine mammals comprise an important part of the diet of larger sharks. More attacks on humans, many of them fatal, have been attributed to the white shark than to any other aquatic animal. Occasionally used commercially for meat, fins, hide and oil.

Its weight alone makes it a top prize for game fishermen.  But it is now a protected species in Australia. See NSW Fisheries Announcement.