Great White Sharks - FAQs

Great white sharks are some of the ocean’s most fascinating yet feared predators. 

In this Q&A, we dive into their behaviour, habits, and the ways we can safely share the waters with them.

Image: Great white shark swimming past a cage in Gansbaai (by Saxon Lodge Gansbaai)

Q: Why are they called great white sharks? 

A: Their size and white bellies, as well as their awesomeness, lead to the name! 

Q: How big do great white sharks get?

A: The largest great white shark ever reliably recorded was a female estimated at 6.4 meters (21 feet) long and weighing around 3,300 kilograms (7,275 pounds).

Unverified reports and legendary “monster” sharks sometimes claim lengths over 8 to 9 meters, but these are not scientifically confirmed. 

Most adult great whites are 4 to 5 meters (13 - 16 feet) long, with males slightly smaller than females.

Q: Where do great white sharks come from?

A: Most sharks, as we know them today, developed about 64 million years ago during the age of the dinosaurs.

The very first ancestors of sharks appeared 200 million years before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Sharks are more related to fish species such as the stingray than the barracuda. Half of the shark species average less than a meter in length, with the females being larger than the males. 
 
Q: How many great white sharks are there, and where are they?

A: Scientists don’t know the exact number of great white sharks in the world because they’re highly migratory and hard to count, but current best estimates put the global population somewhere in the range of roughly 5,000 to perhaps 20,000 individuals.

A 2025 scientific assessment estimated a minimum of about 5,800 individuals, with some experts saying the real total could be much higher (possibly up to around 20,000) based on genetic and tracking data.

Great whites are private, elusive apex predators that gracefully cruise the Seven Seas and can easily cover distances of up to 20,000 km in nine months. They migrate between all the continents, except Antarctica. Tracking them is challenging because of the vast distances they travel.
 
Q: How long do great white sharks live?

Great white sharks are long-lived animals. 

Current research suggests that females can live up to 70 years or more, while males usually live slightly shorter lives, around 30 to 40 years.

Q: How do great white sharks find their prey?

A: All of that and more. Sharks, like most animal species, have an intricate sensory system that makes them much more sensitive to their surroundings than humans. 

A shark can "hear" a fish in the water from more than 1.5km and smell tiny amounts of blood up to 5km away. They also have a great visual system, very much like our own, at distances of 15 metres or less. Vision is the most dominant sense. Their eyes are 10 times more sensitive to light than those of humans, which lets them see perfectly at night. They can hunt by starlight alone. 

Another lesser-known fact is that great whites also have a full-colour vision. Although their eyes appear to be black, they aren’t. The pupil is circular, and the iris is dark and ringed with a spectral hint of midnight blue. They have no eyelids, but they do roll the eyeballs back to protect the vital front part of the eye from being scratched. These mammals have an exceptional sense of smell to detect prey and can ‘smell’ one drop of blood in 100L of water. Their intricate sensory system even enables them to detect the tiny electromagnetic fields generated by animals. 

Q: Do they go into a "feeding frenzy" when they smell blood?

A: No, their splashing and tail-slapping may just look like a frenzy in movies, but in real life, great white sharks do not fight over food. 

The bigger or more dominant animal normally takes control of the area. It has been observed that when feeding on whale carcasses, sharks have a pecking order where one feeds and only once it leaves, will the next one move in.

When there is only enough food for one, they have a tail-slapping contest. The sharks swim past each other, each slapping the surface of the water with their tails, and often directing the spray towards the other shark. The one who delivers the most tail slaps gets the meal!

Image: Notice the great white sharks white underneath and dark top half.

Q: What are great white sharks' eating habits?

A: Unlike humans, great white sharks do not over-indulge or eat out of habit. 

They hunt and eat when they are hungry and when food is scarce, and can go without food for a long time because their bodies can store nutrients, much like a camel does. Scientists estimate that after a big meal, a great white shark can last up to three months before needing another one. 

Great whites often have scratches and scars on their snouts that resulted from their prey fighting back.

They are stately and streamlined torpedo-shaped swimmers with powerful tails that can propel them through the water at speeds of up to 24 km (15 miles) per hour. They can even leave the water completely, breaching like whales when attacking prey from underneath.

Q: What do great white sharks eat? 

A: Sharks have a diverse, balanced diet ranging from fish to mammals. 

Their main prey includes sea lions, seals, small-toothed whales, and even sea turtles, as well as carrion, the decaying flesh of a dead animal. Young great white sharks even eat leopard sharks. Great whites don’t chew their food. They swallow it whole, and if it is too big, they tear it into chunks with their special teeth. 

Shark pups are born with sharp teeth and the ability to hunt right from the start. They have about 300 serrated, triangular teeth arranged in several rows, and it is believed that they may use and lose more than 30,000 during their lifetime. The new teeth are larger than the ones they replace, and some sharks even produce differently shaped teeth as they grow older. Shark teeth have been used as weapons and tools for many centuries, and today fossilised teeth of between 20 and 200 million years old are also sought-after keepsakes. It’s important to note that it is illegal to sell or own white shark products in South Africa unless they are fossilised. 

Image: Seals, the great white sharks top choice to hunt.

Image: Great white shark eye (by White Shark Projects)

Q: Where and when do the great white sharks breed?

A: Great white sharks have a slow and secretive breeding cycle, which is why much of what we know comes from indirect research:

What we do know is that they give birth in coastal nursery areas, often in temperate or subtropical waters. Known nursery sites include South Africa (False Bay and KwaZulu-Natal coast), Australia (New South Wales and South Australia), and parts of California.

Females tend to seek shallow, protected bays where pups have a better chance of survival.

Mating is thought to occur year-round in some regions, but peaks in late spring to early summer, depending on location.

Gestation lasts about 11 months, after which the female gives birth to up to ten pups.

Great whites are viviparous, which means the pups develop inside the mother and are born fully formed and independent. At birth, the pups are about 1.2 to 1.5 meters long and must hunt and survive on their own from the get-go. Because litters are small and females take between 10 and 15 years to reach sexual maturity, great white populations grow very slowly, making them vulnerable to human impacts.

Q: Who are the enemies of great white sharks?

A: Great white sharks are apex predators, so adult great whites have very few natural enemies. But there are still a few. These included Orcas (killer Whales), other territorial great white sharks and humans who are by far the biggest threat.

In general, sharks are killed by fishing, bycatch, hunting, and habitat destruction, which has a far greater impact on populations than natural predators.

Image: Orcas, the great white shark hunters.

Q: Why do great white sharks attack humans?

A: Sharks don’t purposely hunt humans to eat them. They are merely curious, and in most cases, it’s a case of mistaken identity. What seems like an attack is actually sample biting, and they really have no intention to harm or kill humans, because human flesh is not on their menu!  

Roughly 85 - 90% of shark attack victims survive because the shark realised it made a mistake and didn’t finish off what it thought was prey. 

Ironically, sharks have much more reason to fear people, seeing that up to 100 million sharks are killed by people every year. That’s about 74,000 sharks per day on average, globally.

The odds of dying from a shark attack are minuscule, far smaller than the chances of more everyday accidents, making these fears largely a product of imagination rather than reality.

Q: Can humans catch great white sharks?

A: No! Great white sharks are a protected species in many countries, including South Africa, Australia, the United States, and several Mediterranean nations.

In South Africa, great whites have been fully protected since 1991. It is illegal to catch, kill, sell, or even possess any part of a great white shark without a special permit.

Internationally, they are listed under CITES, which strictly controls or bans international trade.

Accidental bycatch, special scientific research permits and government-managed shark control programs are the few exceptions.

For interest's sake, if you are wondering whether you can eat them, great white sharks have high urea and trimethylamine levels in their meat. Other than tasting bitter, it can be toxic if not properly treated. 

Most shark meat sold for consumption comes from other species, such as mako, thresher, or dogfish.