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45 free Hard Sharks trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This hard sharks trivia quiz goes well past the great white. It asks which shark is the world's smallest and where it lives, which one has a gestation of up to three and a half years, which species walks across tide pools and survives two hours without oxygen, how deep the Portuguese dogfish goes, what megalodon's bite force was, why bonnetheads are omnivores, who first described the ampullae of Lorenzini and how far up the Mississippi a bull shark has been found. There are questions on shark evolution, filter feeders, bioluminescent species, Jaws, Shark Week, finning and the sharks that actually bite people. It is written for marine-biology students, dive clubs and quiz hosts who need a properly tough round; if you want the friendlier version, our main sharks trivia page has it. Expect most questions at hard or expert level. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia article on the species or topic, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how many teeth can a shark shed over its lifetime?
30,000+
Some sharks shed 30,000+ teeth in a lifetime: the teeth sit in the gums rather than the jaw, and replacement rows move forward like a conveyor belt.
Q 02Sharks breathe through gill slits on each side of the body; how many does a shark have per side?
Five to seven
Sharks have five to seven gill slits per side, plus a ribless skeleton of cartilage and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head.
Q 03Which order, the ground sharks, includes hammerheads, catsharks and requiem sharks?
Carcharhiniformes
Carcharhiniformes, the ground sharks, is the largest shark order with over 270 species, including the hammerheads, catsharks and requiem sharks such as the bull shark.
Q 04The oldest total-group chondrichthyans, the spiny sharks or acanthodians, appeared in which period?
Early Silurian
Acanthodians appeared in the Early Silurian, around 439 million years ago; isolated shark-like scales go back even further, to the Late Ordovician.
Q 05Cladoselache, an early shark, is famous for well-preserved fossils from which formation?
The Cleveland Shale on Lake Erie
Cladoselache is known from superbly preserved Late Devonian fossils in the Cleveland Shale along Lake Erie in Ohio; oddly, no claspers have ever been found on any specimen.
Q 06Helicoprion, a Permian shark relative, is famous for what bizarre feature?
A spiral tooth whorl
Helicoprion's name means spiral saw: it carried a spiral tooth whorl, a coil of teeth known from fossils found in Russia and Australia. Alexander Karpinsky named it in 1899.
Q 07Megalodon's jaws could exert a bite force of roughly what?
108,500 to 182,200 newtons
A 2008 study estimated megalodon's bite force at 108,500 to 182,200 newtons, among the strongest of any animal; it lived from about 23 to 3.6 million years ago.
Q 08What is the maximum known length of the dwarf lanternshark, the world's smallest shark?
20 cm
The dwarf lanternshark reaches a maximum known length of about 20 cm; it is known only from the upper continental slopes off Colombia and Venezuela at 283 to 439 metres.
Q 09What is the largest reliably recorded length for a whale shark?
18.8 m
The largest confirmed whale shark measured 18.8 m (61.7 ft); the species' lifespan is estimated at 80 to 130 years.
Q 10The whale shark was first scientifically distinguished after a specimen was harpooned in 1828 where?
Table Bay, South Africa
A 4.6 m specimen harpooned in Table Bay, South Africa, in April 1828 let military doctor Andrew Smith describe the species the following year.
Q 11How many filter pads does a whale shark use to strain plankton from the water?
20
A whale shark has 20 filter pads lining its gill arches; water drawn in through the huge mouth passes through them, leaving plankton and small fish behind.
Q 12Which is the second-largest living shark after the whale shark?
Basking
The basking shark is second only to the whale shark in size; its name comes from feeding at the surface as if sunbathing, straining plankton with bristle-like gill rakers.
Q 13The first megamouth shark ever seen was caught in November 1976 when it became tangled in what?
The sea anchor of a US Navy research vessel
Q 21Which plant makes up about 62% of the omnivorous bonnethead shark's gut contents?
Seagrass
Seagrass makes up about 62% of the bonnethead's gut contents, and it digests it; the bonnethead is also the only shark whose head shape differs between the sexes.
Q 22Which deep-sea shark, described in 1898, has pink skin and highly protrusible jaws?
Goblin
The goblin shark, described by David Starr Jordan in 1898, has pink skin, a blade-like snout studded with ampullae of Lorenzini, and jaws that shoot forward; its lineage is some 125 million years old.
Q 23The frilled shark's gestation period can last how long?
Up to 3.5 years
It happened off Kahuku, Hawaii, and fewer than 300 specimens have been recorded since.
Q 14What top speed can the shortfin mako, the fastest shark, reach in bursts?
74 km/h
The shortfin mako has been clocked at 74 km/h in bursts, the fastest of any shark; its genus name Isurus means equal tail, from the near-equal lobes of its caudal fin.
Q 15Which genus holds the true river sharks of northern Australia, New Guinea and the Ganges?
Glyphis
Glyphis is the genus of true river sharks, including the speartooth shark of northern Australia and New Guinea and the Ganges shark; unlike bull sharks they live mainly in fresh and brackish water.
Q 16The bull shark swims far up rivers; in Africa it is named after which great river?
Zambezi
It is the Zambezi shark in Africa and the Lake Nicaragua shark in Central America, because it thrives in warm, shallow and even brackish water.
Q 17Which shark ranks second only to the great white in recorded fatal attacks on humans?
Tiger
The tiger shark is second only to the great white in recorded fatal attacks; it is nicknamed the garbage eater for the licence plates and tyres found in its stomach.
Q 18Of more than 500 shark species, how many account for double-digit tallies of fatal unprovoked attacks on humans?
Three
Just three: the great white, tiger and bull shark. Worldwide there are only around 80 unprovoked attacks a year.
Q 19Who coined the great white's genus name Carcharodon in 1838?
Sir Andrew Smith
Sir Andrew Smith coined Carcharodon in 1838, combining Greek words for sharp and tooth; Linnaeus had described the species as Squalus carcharias in 1758, and it is the genus's only living species.
Q 20What is the technical name for the flattened, T-shaped head of a hammerhead shark?
Cephalofoil
The cephalofoil spreads the eyes for better binocular vision and gives more room for electroreceptors; hammerheads unusually school by day and hunt alone at night.
Frilled shark gestation may last up to 3.5 years, the longest known for any vertebrate; it swallows prey whole with about 300 trident-shaped teeth and swims like an eel.
Q 24Which shark, recorded down to 3,675 m, is the deepest-living species known?
Portuguese dogfish
The Portuguese dogfish has been recorded at 3,675 m, deeper than any other shark; its eyes are tuned to spot the bioluminescence of prey in water sunlight never reaches.
Q 25Which is the largest luminous vertebrate on record?
Kitefin
The kitefin shark, mostly 1 to 1.4 m long with a reported maximum of 1.8 m, was shown in 2021 to glow, making it the largest luminous vertebrate known.
Q 26Cookiecutter bite marks have been found on which unusual man-made objects?
Submarines and sea cables
Cookiecutter bite marks have been found on submarines and sea cables, as well as on whales, fish and, occasionally, people. The cigar-shaped shark takes a round plug from each.
Q 27The word wobbegong is thought to come from Dharug, an Australian Aboriginal language, and means what?
Shaggy beard
Wobbegong means shaggy beard, referring to the fleshy lobes around the carpet shark's mouth; 12 species are recognised, mostly around Australia and Indonesia.
Q 28Thresher sharks use their tails, which can be as long as their bodies, to do what?
Stun prey
Threshers whip their scythe-like upper tail lobe to stun prey, slapping schooling fish before eating them; the common thresher, Alopias vulpinus, is also called the fox shark.
Q 29Which shark is the only one known to gulp air at the surface and store it in its stomach for buoyancy?
Sand tiger
The sand tiger gulps air so it can hang near-neutrally buoyant and hunt motionless and quiet. Its embryos eat their siblings in the womb.
Q 30Zebra sharks are named for their striped juveniles; what pattern do the adults show instead?
Dark spots on pale skin
Adults wear dark spots on pale skin, which is why they are also called Indo-Pacific leopard sharks. Only the young, under about 50 to 90 cm, have light stripes on brown.