#south indian male

[bhrm555]

Untitled 3 & 4 by Thota Vaikuntam

[feministfang]

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!!!

Just recently, an Indian woman’s brutal rape case shook the entire world to the core, Indian women are out on streets protesting and fighting for her justice, women everywhere are scared for their lives and angry, but men somehow made it about themselves once again.

These shameless south asian men are making and sharing disgusting dark memes on social media about the victim and cracking jokes, but women are not even allowed to speak a word against these bastards cause the pick me pricks won’t stop bringing their swords in, protecting these men who should be lynched to death.

All men are busy "nOt aLL mEning" like always, but women can’t point fingers at them because "i hAvE hUGGeD mEn yOu gUys thEy’rE grEaT"

In India, one in every three women is raped every minute, but let’s not blame all men, it’s just a fEw oF thEm. PlEaSe tHinK bEfoRe yOu sPeAk!!

Men are happily cheering on the victim’s death and going on with their privileged lives, but let’s give them a tissue paper because tHey’re sUbjEcTed tO thE sAme tUrmOil tHe wOmEn fEEl. 🥺

South Asian men are number one in the list of all trash men and yet these dumbfucks cannot stop worshipping their ugly dicks. But enough is enough now!! This happens every time a woman goes through something worst. Every single time the pick mes and their favourite m@les pop out of their garbage dumpsters making it all about these mEn. But not anymore!!!!

Please start calling out these type of people and publicly shame them! I swear if i see any other person saying shit like "nOt aLL mEn bUt aLwAys a mAn" it won’t be my fault whatever happens to them next.

I will blame all men because YES IT IS ALL MEN! ALL MEN ARE TRASH! ALL MEN SHOULD DIE!

PS. the last pic is the screenshot from the instagram story of a Pakistani writer, Umera Ahmed! Also, excuse the B slur!

[face-claims-central]

Uma Vethakkan - Indian, Unknown

[beausimmer]

Indian prince, Ranganatha. Not finished yet since there's so little male south asian cc for Sims 4 and I wanna cry 😭

[katiajewelbox]

One of the more obscure supporting characters in the anime Vision of Escaflowne, Voris is one of the Duke of Freid's trusted advisors and a military commander in his country of Freid. Freid is a fictional country inspired by South East Asia and therefore I chose motifs and architectural details from these cultures for Voris’ portrait.

My character portrait features official animation art along with my own original composition made with Picmix.

[nagarajhiphop]

[bollywoodboxoffice]

Top 10 South Indian Hero Name With Photo

South Indian cinema has become one of the most popular genres at the Box Office just becasue of the superb acting of the Top South Indian Hero who has given the most hit movies like Pushpa (Action drama film), KGF (Action-packed movie), and Bahubali (a high-budget movie which created history in South Indian cinema with a great box office collection) that all have captured the hearts of audience…

[rrcraft-and-lore]

In addition to my Monkey Man post from earlier, the always kind & sweet Aparna Verma (author of The Phoenix King, check it out) asked that I do a thread on Hijras, & more of the history around them, South Asia, mythology (because that's my thing), & the positive inclusion of them in Monkey Man which I brought up in my gushing review.

Hijra: They are the transgender, eunuch, or intersex people in India who are officially recognized as the third sex throughout most countries in the Indian subcontinent. The trans community and history in India goes back a long way as being documented and officially recognized - far back as 12th century under the Delhi Sultanate in government records, and further back in our stories in Hinduism. The word itself is a Hindi word that's been roughly translated into English as "eunuch" commonly but it's not exactly accurate.

Hijras have been considered the third sex back in our ancient stories, and by 2014 got official recognition to identify as the third gender (neither male or female) legally. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India have accepted: eunuch, trans, intersex people & granted them the proper identification options on passports and other government official documents.

But let's get into some of the history surrounding the Hijra community (which for the longest time has been nomadic, and a part of India's long, rich, and sometimes, sadly, troubled history of nomadic tribes/people who have suffered a lot over the ages. Hijras and intersex people are mentioned as far back as in the Kama Sutra, as well as in the early writings of Manu Smriti in the 1st century CE (Common Era), specifically said that a third sex can exist if possessing equal male and female seed.

This concept of balancing male/female energies, seed, and halves is seen in two places in South Asian mythos/culture and connected to the Hijra history.

First, we have Aravan/Iravan (romanized) - who is also the patron deity of the transgender community. He is most commonly seen as a minor/village deity and is depicted in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Aravan is portrayed as having a heroic in the story and his self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali earns him a boon.

He requests to be married before his death. But because he is doomed to die so shortly after marriage, no one wants to marry him.

No one except Krishna, who adopts his female form Mohini (one of the legendary temptresses in mythology I've written about before) and marries him. It is through this union of male, and male presenting as female in the female form of Mohini that the seed of the Hijras is said to begun, and why the transgender community often worships Aravan and, another name for the community is Aravani - of/from Aravan.

But that's not the only place where a gender non conforming divine representation can be seen. Ardhanarishvara is the half female form of lord Shiva, the destroyer god.

Shiva combines with his consort Parvarti and creates a form that represents the balancing/union between male/female energies and physically as a perfectly split down the middle half-male half-female being. This duality in nature has long been part of South Asian culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, and it must be noted the sexuality/gender has often been displayed as fluid in South Asian epics and the stories. It's nothing new.

Many celestial or cosmic level beings have expressed this, and defied modern western limiting beliefs on the ideas of these themes/possibilities/forms of existence.

Ardhanarishvara signifies "totality that lies beyond duality", "bi-unity of male and female in God" and "the bisexuality and therefore the non-duality" of the Supreme Being.

Back to the Hijra community.

They have a complex and long history. Throughout time, and as commented on in the movie, Monkey Man, the Hijra community has faced ostracization, but also been incorporated into mainstream society there. During the time of the Dehli Sultanate and then later the Mughal Empire, Hijras actually served in the military and as military commanders in some records, they were also servants for wealthy households, manual laborers, political guardians, and it was seen as wise to put women under the protection of Hijras -- they often specifically served as the bodyguards and overseers of harems. A princess might be appointed a Hijra warrior to guard her.

But by the time of British colonialism, anti-Hijra laws began to come in place folded into laws against the many nomadic tribes of India (also shown in part in Monkey Man with Kid (portrayed by Dev Patel) and his family, who are possibly

one of those nomadic tribes that participated in early theater - sadly by caste often treated horribly and relegated to only the performing arts to make money (this is a guess based on the village play they were performing as no other details were given about his family).

Hijras were criminalized in 1861 by the Indian Penal Code enforced by the British and were labeled specifically as "The Hijra Problem" -- leading to an anti-Hijra campaign across the subcontinent with following laws being enacted: punishing the practices of the Hijra community, and outlawing castration (something many Hijra did to themselves). Though, it should be noted many of the laws were rarely enforced by local Indian officials/officers. But, the British made a point to further the laws against them by later adding the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, which targeted the Hijra community along with the other nomadic Indian tribes - it subjected them to registration, tracking/monitoring, stripping them of children, and their ability to sequester themselves in their nomadic lifestyle away from the British Colonial Rule.

Today, things have changed and Hijras are being seen once again in a more positive light (though not always and this is something Monkey Man balances by what's happened to the community in a few scenes, and the heroic return/scene with Dev and his warriors). All-hijra communities exist and sort of mirror the western concept of "found families" where they are safe haven/welcoming place trans folks and those identifying as intersex.

These communities also have their own secret language known as Hijra Farsi, which is loosely based on Hindi, but consists of a unique vocabulary of at least 1,000 words.

As noted above, in 2014, the trans community received more legal rights.

Specifically: In April 2014, Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan declared transgender to be the third gender in Indian law in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India.

Hijras, Eunuchs, apart from binary gender, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of our Constitution and the laws made by the Parliament and the State Legislature. Transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

I've included some screenshots of (some, not all, and certainly not the only/definitive reads) books people can check out about SOME of the history. Not all again. This goes back ages and even our celestial beings/creatures have/do display gender non conforming ways.

There are also films that touch on Hijra history and life. But in regards to Monkey Man, which is what started this thread particularly and being asked to comment - it is a film that positively portrayed India's third sex and normalized it in its depiction. Kid the protagonist encounters a found family of Hijras at one point in the story (no spoilers for plot) and his interactions/acceptance, living with them is just normal. There's no explaining, justifying, anything to/for the audience. It simply is. And, it's a beautiful arc of the story of Kid finding himself in their care/company.

[hadesoftheladies]

to my indian sisters, may you know your grief and anger are shared by many. may you create a more just world with your voices. you are the path toward a humane and fantastic future, you are the explorers and inventors our world desperately needs. your strength is the pride of the human race.

to my usa-american sisters, may you secure your rights and come together in a new and powerful way, pulling away from other divisions in order to come into your power and wrestle your country back from the self-destructive hands of men. to my native sisters especially, may your resilience in guarding the earth from the violence of men yield fruit. may your people roam their lands freely and without fear once again. may your daughters be rescued from the dim trucks of the military ghouls of a society merely pretending at civilization.

to my afghani sisters, may the world, sun and sky, once again see your beautiful faces. may your voices run as free, wild and far as the wind again in song.

to my sisters in iran, may you you once again dance without fear as boldly as the fire. may the evil world of men around you burn and may your daughters and mothers kick up its ashes. women. life. freedom.

to my south korean sisters, you are fiercer than anyone could have ever imagined, a beacon of hope to women everywhere. you have inspired a generation of women to reclaim what is rightfully theirs and there is no reward we could give that would ever measure up to that gift. i will do my best to follow your lead into freedom.

to my sisters in congo, no one knows the pain you have endured and no one can fathom it. i will keep my ear out for your weeping and your crying. i will not turn my face from you. i will see you.

to my sisters in sudan, you have done your best to bear more than can be humanly possible. i cannot comprehend the volume of your suffering. i cannot fathom it. but i refuse to forget you. i ache for you. may your stomachs once again be full and your bodies free of the pain of hunger. may you find shelter from the desert and the wild men that roam it.

to my tigrayan sisters, you should never have had to suffer for the hatred and greed in men's hearts. may your world be once again filled with friends instead of enemies.

to my sisters trapped and corralled in deutschland, may you break out from the display windows and trafficking pens. may your body find rest and comfort. may you find home and love. may you go to bed at night and fear nothing. may the district one day go completely dark.

to my sisters in palestine, may you see the day you rebuild what had been utterly destroyed. may your every need be met and your grief validated. may your anguish be taken from you. may abundance surround you and may there be laughter once again in your homes.

to the immigrant women, the working class women, the mothers, the schoolgirls, the women in cities and countries facing rising rates of femicide and assault, the victims of cyber-bullying . . .

there are so many of us, suffering at the hands of incessant male violence. no matter the age, income, or ethnicity. no matter the location. it is everywhere. and so i grieve with all of you, i am angry on all your behalf, i hope for all of us. and i will do what i can to let you know you are not alone in the world. we are here, all of us, together.

may we all be free.

[herpsandbirds]

Hi, I love your blog, I’m a long-time bird fan but my friend is a herp-fanatic and your blog lets me see all the cute birds that I love but also share a bunch of weird and wonderful herps with her that I wouldn’t have been able to find myself. Also I’ve built quite the appreciation of turtles and frogs from your posts, I’m adopting two turtles and I’ll have them next month! Thank you so much for sharing your enthusiasm, it’s definitely improved my life.

Thank you so much for joining us on this journey!

Here's a herp for friend and a bird for you!

Violet-crowned Woodnymph (Thalurania colombica), male, family Trochilidae, order Apodiformes, Ecuador

photograph by Juan Bahamon

Indian Roofed Turtles (Pangshura tecta), hatchlings, family Geoemydidae, found in major rivers of South Asia

photograph by Turtle Island

[i-yap]

omgg i always imagine tim with an indian/south asian reader. saw it mentioned on another blog/ask but making chai for him to get him to stop drinking coffee (and he gets addicted to chai instead). imagining him trying to deal with the aunties.. he’s rich AND smart?? and he isn’t racist?? and he doesn’t hit you?? they think you bribed him.

Not to be racially insensitive and ofc all our experiences r different but this is so common (Im north Indian with a little Spanish in me shifting to NY and had a black ex I was with for 1 yr) Honestly i see so many similarities in asian, black and brown cultures...idk why? like why do we all have nosy aunties and why do all our parents try to first hide us from the opposite gender and then arrange marriage us? And why have we all been hit by either a chapaal , belt or slap?? I have a caucasian roommate and she is always so confused by our traditions.

Tim Drake x diff culture reader-

You're dating a white boy- you get one of two reactions- "our kid is GOING TO GET A GREEN CARD AND WONT BE RANDOMLY KICKED OUT FOR NO REASON AT ALL" or " ay dumbass how will a white boy understand our culture(the classic "what will others say")

Well little did they know that everyone will say good things. he is so respectful and handsome (AND RICH) they love him so much.

I bet the kids just rlly like him. Your male cousins hate him cuz UK the traditional comparison that parents make. Even the older uncles will be a little hesitant cuz sorry not sorry- tim is a pretty boy.

That is until a roberry or a drunk uncle becoming abusive at an event happens and with a simple twist of the arm and kick to the ankle tim has the person disarmed and under control....without a single wrinkle on his shirt like its a daily routine for him( It is though). now the uncles and younger male cousins love him.

the older aunties always loved him. They get to squish his cheeks and he gets them all presents (personalized ones cuz he got the stalking gene and he just wants to seem like the perfect husband material to you) . He got the little girl cousins swooning cuz he is literally prince charming and he just talks so sweetly to everyone. (probably keeps candy in his pocket- learned it from jason )

its hard not to love him tbh HE IS SO UNDERRATED AHHHH

[hindulivesmatter]

Why Gandhi is a piece of shit and you should hate him.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been established in our history as a "Mahatma" which means "great soul"

This man is anything but that.

He is EVERYWHERE. He's on our currency, he's revered as a hero who saved India, and we have a mandatory holiday on October 2nd in honor of him.

If you didn't know, now you're going to get to know why he was a horrible human being. Let's begin.

This man managed to fool people Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela (among many others) into thinking he was a good person.

Here is some of the shit he's done:

In 1903, when Gandhi was in South Africa, he wrote that white people there should be "the predominating race." He also said black people "are troublesome, very dirty, and live like animals."

 Refused to have sex with his wife for the last 38 years of their marriage. He felt that in order to test his commitment to celibacy, he would have beautiful young women (including his own great niece) lie next to him naked through the night. His wife, whom he described as looking like a "meek cow" was no longer desirable enough to be a solid test.

Believed that Indian women who were raped lost their value as a human.

During Gandhi's time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered a male youth had been harassing two of his female followers. Gandhi responded by personally cutting the girls' hair off, to ensure the "sinner's eye" was "sterilised". Gandhi boasted of the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them.

He argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honour. 

Gandhi also waged a war against contraceptives, labelling Indian women who used them as whores.

He believed menstruation was a "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality".

On 6th April 1947, he gave a speech where he said, “ If the Muslims are out there slicing through Hindu masses to wipe out the Hindu race, the Hindus should say nothing and peacefully accept death”.

He hated the great Hindu rulers, especially Shivaji Maharaj. To please the Muslims, he banned the book named ShivBhaavani which correctly depicted Islam’s intolerance and fierce fundamentalism spread by it.

Refused his wife life-saving medication (for religious reasons), but those religious reasons all of a sudden no longer applied to him when he was in a similar position.

Started a fast unto death when Ambedkar asked for separate electorates for Dalits.

Gandhi left his ailing father on his deathbed, to sleep with his wife. The child born out of this copulation died in infancy. According to Gandhi, the death of this infant was the result of this evil karma.

Gandhi, even when he claimed to be the angel of non-violence, made no efforts to prevent the British from deploying Indian troops at various locations during World War II.

Kashmir was invaded by Pakistan in 1947, the brutal Pakistani army committed heinous crimes against Kashmiri Pandits including mass rape and mass killings consequently many Pandits were forced to flee to Delhi and other places. In one incident Pandits took refuge in an abandoned mosque in Delhi. Infuriated, Gandhi threatened to fast to death if the Pandits didn't leave. The Pandits were slaughtered in a communal riot as soon as they abandoned the mosques.

Criticized the Jews for defending themselves against the Holocaust because he insisted that they should have committed public mass suicide in order to "shame" the Germans instead of fighting back. His exact words were, "But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions."

And this is all from a simple Internet search compiled here. I wonder what else is hiding if I do a deep dive.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[aero-sense]

After gaining a little more information about Omashu from the games, I'd like to go into the South Asian/SEA references of the city.

The common headdress for men in Omashu are turbans. They wear it the same style of the Cabbage Man which @atlaculture has matched it to a Khăn Vấn, a vietnamese turban:

The turban does have a similar shape, but depending the style, the Khăn Vấn can be wrapped like a headband that shows hair in the back, unlike the Omashu turbans that wrap completely around the head. Turbans have a long history that spans many cultures and religions, so here are some other turbans I thought looked similar:

These are the Sikh turbans, also referred as a Dastār. This particular style shown in the example is called the modern Dumalla. I thought the wrapped style was similar to the turban design in the game.

Another kind are the Islamic turbans found in South and South East Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh. The turban can come in different colors and patterns (I found only white ones for the examples, but I've seen green, yellow, and checkered before).

The women in Omashu also wear head coverings and this one in particular reminded me of the hijab style I've seen Indonesians wear.

Another cultural reference @atlaculture covered is how King Bumi's rock candy he encased Sokka and Katara with is like the rock sugar used in Asia. The method of developing rock sugar, or Misri, was invented in India and is the oldest refined form of sugar. It's used as candy or a sweetener for milk and tea. In Karnataka, it's served with water for guests in the summer.

Lastly, Bumi's name has ties to South and South East Asia. @cyndaquillt has already done a wonderful post going into Bumi's name from a South Asian view:

Bhumi (भूमि, pronounced bhoo-mi) is a Sanskrit word that means ground. The root of the word is Bhu (भू) which means earth.

There's also @ririsasy additions, that Bumi is the Indonesian word for Earth. In Indonesia, Bumi is a name usually given to males, while Bhumi is a name commonly given to Indian women, and is the name of the goddess of Earth in Hinduism.

There's many overlaps between these cultures and more, but overall Omashu leans towards a more South Asian/SEA setting than East Asian compared to the rest of the Earth Kingdom. Any additions or corrections are welcome!

[arminreindl]

Gharial rescued from sea

Another instance of more recent croc news, a "giant" gharial was found in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Balsore, eastern India.

According to news articles, the animal, an adult Indian Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), meassured around 13 feet or in metric close to 4 meters in length while weighing some 118 kilos.

The gharial apparently got caught in a fishing net and was found by fishermen, who promptly reported their catch to the Forest Department. The department then handed the animal over to Nandankanan Zoological Park, where the crocodilian still resides.

That's all the information given to us by the article, which you can read here, but there's two key notes I wanna touch upon.

The first is size. At 4 meters, this gharial was decently large for sure and as someone who has seen a (stuffed) female of slightly greater proportions I can attest that it must have been an impressive animal. However, I think its worth mentioning that Indian gharials are capable of growing even larger. The female I just mentioned is accompanied by a stuffed male nearly 5 and a half meters in length, with some reports claiming sizes even greater than that.

Me and the Vienna gharials

The second point is the mysterious presence of a gharial this far out at sea. This is simultaneously unusual yet also very much reasonable from the point of view of paleontology.

On the one hand, Indian gharials are critically endangered. Their range today is incrediply spotty and isolated and to my knowledge they aren't found anywhere near the coast these days.

However when you look at how the range was meant to be like, then you see that they definitely reached the river deltas and coastal regions. So our image of gharials as this inland freshwater species is more based in circumstance than reality.

This becomes especially apparent once you begin to consider the paleobiogeography of gharials. Based on our current knowledge, gharials most likely originated somewhere in Eurasia or Africa, spreading from there across much of the eastern hemisphere and beyond (full disclosure I am not considering thoracosaurs to be gavialoids, more on that can of worms later maybe). Anywho, phylogenetic analysis and the fossil record both suggest that gharials then crossed oceans and settled South America sometime prior to or during the Miocene, where they diversified and gave rise to the gryposuchines. Some species even remained saltwater species, such as Piscogavialis, which lived in the coastal waters of Peru.

Although gryposuchines were once thought to be a distinct subfamily of gharial, recent research suggests that they were but an evolutionary stepping stone, with some South American form once again crossing the Pacific and settling down in Asia where the much more basal "tomistomines" or false gharials (a misnomer) still resided. And while the gryposuchines of South America went extinct, those that returned to Asia survived and eventually gave rise to the Indian Gharial of today.

Left: A cladogram showing the relationship between Gryposuchinae and modern gharials Right: Piscogavialis swimming overhead some marine sloths of the genus Thalassocnus by @knuppitalism-with-ue

So ultimately, seeing a gharial in saltwater is much less bizarre than one would initially think, its just that habitat destruction and overhunting have largely pushed these gorgeous reptiles further inland and to the brink of extinction.

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the the Pelagic thresher shark!

The pelagic thresher, also known as the pacific common thresher shark, scientific name Alopias pelagicus, is a common thresher shark. Found along the tropical and subtropical waters in the Pacific and Indian ocean, stretching from South Africa to The West Coast of America. Like other thresher sharks, the pelagic thresher inhabits the open ocean, occasionally coming close to the continental shelf near coral reefs, and seamounts. Seasonally, they migrate North and South, to follow warmer waters. Pelagic threshers are the smallest species of thresher shark, and despite being visually similar to their relatives they can be differentiated by the dark pigment above the pectoral fins and the rounded fin tips.Similar to other threshers, the teeth are smooth and small, with 20-22 teeth per jaw, curved inward to trap prey inside their mouth.

Due to their medium size, the pelagic thresher is predated on by many larger predators. Primarily larger sharks, orcas, and other toothed whales that share an area. They are known to have tapeworm parasites and copepods in the skin. This leads to the symbiotic relationship with cleaner wrasses, who eat their parasites. The pelagic thresher's diet consists of small prey along the mesopelagic zone, primarily lightfishes, barracudas, flying fishes, herrings, squids, and mackerels. This keeps them from competing with other oceanic predators in their size range, such as tuna, billfish, and other sharks. They hunt similar to other thrasher sharks, by swimming tight circles around a school of prey, until they condense. Then, striking with the upper caudal fin tip lobe of the tail to stun. This long tail is often the cause for plegic threshers getting hooked as bycatch for other fishing efforts, specifically having issues with longlines.  Although several commercial fisheries go out of their way to hunt for plegic threshers, leading to their status as endangered.

Just like all other mackerel sharks, the pelagic thresher shark is ovoviviparous, meaning they have young kept in eggs within the mother, and when they hatch, they are born live. Similar to other thresher sharks , the pelagic thresher gives birth to two pups at a time, one per each uterus. They have no defined breeding season and the gestation period is unknown, but assumed to be similar to the year gestation period of common threshers. Pups are born surprisingly large, at about 5 feet in length. As compared to the sexually mature adult size of about 10 feet, the largest recorded being around 11feet. Maturity is reached at around 9 feet in length, which is usually around the 8th or 9th year in females, and around 7-8 years in males. Their lifespan is about 28 years in females, possibly longer, whereas male threshers get the short stick, living only 17 years in comparison.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias)

Habitat & Distribution

Found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans from Canada and the Mediterranean to South Africa and Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Can reside in open oceans, but is more commonly seen in coastal waters

Physical Description

Weight: 680–1,110 kg (1,500–2,450 lb)

Length: 3.4 to 4.0 m (11 to 13 ft) for males, 4.6 to 4.9 m (15 to 16 ft) for females

Great white sharks are grey with a white underbelly

The body is torpedo-shaped, with a narrow snout and large, triangular fins

Behaviour

In most areas, great white sharks are solitary, but where they do congregate they form hierarchies arranged mainly by size

The diet is varied, consisting of fish, dolphins, seals, sea turtles, squid, whale carcasses and other sharks

Their only known natural predators are killer whales

Key Advantages

Great white sharks have large, sharp teeth designed for grabbing and ripping prey; they have have an incredibly strong bite force, of up to 18,216 newtons (4,095 lbf)

They can swim very fast, up to 50 kph / 35 mph, and can reach top speed in less than two seconds

Photo by Bob Talbot