Short answers, pulled from the story.
The scientific name of the great white shark is Carcharodon carcharias. This species is the largest living macropredatory shark and fish, capable of sprinting to speeds of 35 miles per hour while cruising at a steady pace across vast oceanic distances.
The first unambiguous appearance of the great white shark in the fossil record occurred approximately 5.3 million years ago during the Pliocene. Paleontologists have identified ancestors like Carcharodon hastalis dating back to the Early Miocene, which possessed teeth similar to the modern great white but lacked the distinctive serrations that define the species today.
One individual great white shark documented a round trip of 12,000 miles in under nine months, traveling from South Africa to the waters off Australia and back again. These migrations follow the seasonal availability of prey, with sharks feeding along the coast during fall and winter and moving to the open ocean during spring and summer.
The largest recorded catch by rod and reel was a 3,380-pound shark caught in 1959 by Alf Dean in Port Lincoln, South Australia. The species is also responsible for the largest number of recorded shark bite incidents on humans, with 351 documented unprovoked bites since 1580, though the majority are non-fatal and often the result of curiosity or mistaken identity.
The first recorded instance of a newborn white shark was filmed in July 2023 off the coast of southern California. This event revealed a pale, embryonic epithelium that covers the shark's skin denticles before rubbing off shortly after birth.
Fewer than 250 mature great white sharks are estimated to remain in European and Mediterranean waters, where sightings have declined by 61 percent since 1975. The global population is estimated to be no more than 20,000 individuals, with populations declining by 30 to 49 percent over the past 159 years.