Sharks: The Animal Answer Guide

The Animal Answer Guides: Q&A for the Curious Naturalist

by Gene Helfman

Do sharks lay eggs or give birth to live young? Do sharks sleep? How long do they live? How likely are shark attacks? This book answers your questions about some of nature’s most misunderstood animals. Answering every conceivable question about sharks, authors Gene Helfman and George H. Burgess describe the fascinating biology, behavior, diversity (there are more than 1,000 species worldwide), and cultural importance of sharks, their close relationship to skates and rays, and their critical role in healthy ecosystems. Helfman and Burgess take readers on a round-the-world tour of shark habitats, which include oceans as well as lakes and even rivers (as far up the Mississippi as St. Louis). They describe huge, ferocious predators like (Great) White and Tiger sharks and species such as Basking and Whale sharks that feed on microscopic prey yet can grow to lengths of more than 40 feet. The mysterious and powerful Greenland shark, the authors explain, reaches a weight of 2,200 pounds on a diet of seal flesh. Small (less than 2-foot long) Cookiecutter sharks attack other sharks and even take a chunk out of the occasional swimmer. Despite our natural fascination with sharks, we have become their worst enemy. Many shark species are in serious decline and a number are threatened with extinction as a result of overfishing and persecution. The Animal Answer Guide presents a perfect mix of current science, history, anthropology, intriguing facts, and gripping photographs. Whether your fascination with sharks stems from fear or curiosity, your knowledge of these animals will improve immensely when you consult this book.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published May 6, 2014

About the author

Gene Helfman is an animal behaviorist turned conservation biologist. With a PhD in Ecology from Cornell University, Gene was on the faculty of the University of Georgia for thirty years, authoring four books on fish and marine conservation and dozens of related scientific papers. He spent much of his professional career underwater demonstrating that fish are smarter than conventionally thought. In an effort to get the message to a larger audience, he has turned to writing screenplays and novels, on the premise that more people read fiction than non-fiction. Gene and his wife Dr. Judy Meyer, an aquatic ecologist, live on Lopez Island in Washington State.

Reviews

[Mariah Roze · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good educational books about sharks. It is written for adults but I was still able to pull a lot of information from it for my students. It helped my shark unit a lot. It also covered a lot of material on sharks.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

Sharks: The Animal Answer Guide is a thoroughly presented, exhaustively researched, one-stop information guide for any question a person may ever have about sharks. This isn't a light and airy book for kids that talks down to them about the animal with bright images and graphics; rather, this is intended as a reference and resource for all ages to seriously address the shark species and have at fingertips everything that is currently known about the animal. The book is text heavy interspersed with B&W images as needed.

The book is broken down by type of question. Section 1 one answers general questions about sharks, skates, rays, and chimaeras. Section 2 is full of questions about form and functions of sharks. Section 3 is about shark colors. Section 4 is for shark behavior questions. Section 5 is about ecology. Section 6 is reproduction and development. Section 7 is about shark food and feeding. Section 8 is about sharks and their interactions with humans. Section 9 is about shark problems. And section 10 is about human problems in how they deal with sharks.

The authors clearly have a great love for the animal and that comes through in the exhaustively researched knowledge of sharks. This is a great book for the budding marine biologist or older child either afraid of or fascinated by sharks to help them understand the animal and take it out of the realm of superstition or legend. As well, I enjoyed sharing several of the questions with my daughter to get her thinking about sea animals and to understand the species. This is also a great book for anyone fascinated by sharks and wanting to know more as well.

The afterward by the authors really explain the motivation to write the book as well as its usefulness: "Together, we have reflected on how great it would have been to have found a book such as this one when our fascination with sharks was new."

My kudos to the authors for a fascinating reference book long overdue. Received as an ARC from the publisher.

[Roberta Decenzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extremely educational and informative read. This book I think is great for any level of expertise in sharks. I personally knew nothing about sharks and found this book really helpful in better understanding them. The one thing I will say, is that this is more an academic book than a light cozy book, and there were a couple sections in which some questions were answered with technical language I didn’t fully understand; but this was not a heavy issue. I would say maybe once or twice in the beginning chapters I had a little trouble with that. The rest of it was beginner friendly.

[Caley Brennan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book covering numerous topics about sharks and other chondrichtyhans that is written in a question-and-answer format and highly informative and entertaining. Aimed at laypeople but also very enjoyable for readers with a scientific/academic background.