Facts From the Shark Cage: How Big Is the Great White Shark?

Great white sharks are some of the most infamous inhabitants of the ocean. They are portrayed in folklore and Hollywood as giants of prehistoric proportions. This has left many people wondering, out of curiosity and/or fear, how big these marine leviathans really are.

While many young land animals (including humans) are born as cute, awkwardly proportioned examples of their species, the white shark comes into the world as a perfectly proportioned miniature replica of the adult it will become. Pregnant female whites have been caught with pups inside measuring 2.5 -3 feet long, and the smallest sharks found in fishing nets have been around 4.5 feet. This has led many to believe that whites are born at a length of 4-5 feet.

An adult white shark is typically between 13 and 17 feet long and weighs 1,500-2,500 pounds. Like most other shark species, the females are most often larger than the males. A fully mature female averages 15-16 feet long, and mature males average 12-14 feet.

Anyone who is a fan of the movie Jaws, recalls Quint the shark hunter stating with certainty that the monster shark terrorizing the waters near Amity Island was 25 feet long. Can these sharks really get that big?

Game fishers and shark hunters for over a century have reported seeing/catching white sharks over 20 feet long, but almost all of these claims have been either unconfirmed or later disproven. As any fisherman will tell you, it is not uncommon to overestimate the size of a prized catch - due to prideful exaggeration and wishful thinking. Scientists and shark experts use the teeth and jaws of these deceased animals to retroactively estimate the actual size of "record breaking sharks," and almost always find them to be several feet shorter than advertised. This is often also true when "official measurements" of the shark at the docks differ from the initial claims of the proud angler who landed it. More than a few indignant shark fishermen believe the theory that a dead fish shrinks after a period of time out of water, and that their great white trophy had gotten considerably smaller between the time it was caught and the time that someone official had gotten around to measuring it!

Some of those record-length white sharks weighed well over 3,000 pounds, yet even this is a source of controversy and debate. Great whites have been caught with several hundred pounds of meat in their stomachs. Scientists and fisherman still argue amongst themselves as to whether or not the final recorded weight of the shark should include stomach contents.