Great White Shark Trivia
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60 free Great White Shark trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This great white shark trivia quiz covers the biology of the ocean's most famous predator: what Carcharodon carcharias means, how its 300 serrated teeth are replaced, why it is partly warm-blooded, how big it really gets (and why the 11-metre claims are nonsense), how it breaches from 20 m down to hit fur seals, how orcas flip it to steal its liver, and why the 'mistaken identity' theory of attacks is disputed. It also covers the shark and people: Linnaeus's Squalus carcharias, Rondelet's 'Lamia' that swallowed Jonah, Blue Water White Death, Peter Benchley's regret over Jaws, Alf Dean's rod-and-reel record, Monterey Bay's 198-day exhibit, the White Shark Café, the Jersey Shore attacks of 1916, and the protections passed in South Africa, Australia, the US and the Mediterranean. Every question was verified against a primary reference (mainly the Wikipedia article on the great white shark) and carries a citation. Play it with our shark, whale shark and hammerhead quizzes.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the great white shark's scientific name?
Carcharodon carcharias
The others are the bull shark, tiger shark and shortfin mako.
Q 02The great white's genus name combines two Greek words meaning what?
Sharp tooth
Sharp tooth: the same Greek root for 'sharp' or 'jagged' gave the ancient Greeks their everyday word for a shark, which the great white carries as the second half of its scientific name.
Q 03Which name do Australians commonly use for the great white shark?
White pointer
White pointer: like 'great white', the name comes from the pale belly, the first thing anyone saw when a dead shark lay upside down on a boat's deck.
Q 04How does a mature female great white typically compare with a mature male?
Clearly longer
Clearly longer: she also takes about 33 years to mature against 26 for a male, and that slow start is one reason great white numbers recover so slowly from losses.
Q 05Researchers tell individual great whites apart by the notched rear edge of which fin?
Its dorsal fin
Its dorsal fin: the edge works like a fingerprint, and photographs of it have let researchers recognise a single shark across more than twenty years and estimate how many there are.
Q 06Which two sharks are larger than the great white?
The whale shark and basking shark
The whale shark and basking shark are the two biggest sharks alive, yet both are harmless filter feeders that cruise open-mouthed for plankton, which leaves the great white as the largest shark that hunts.
Q 07How do great whites replace lost teeth?
Rows behind move forward
Rows behind move forward like a conveyor belt, so most of the roughly 300 teeth in a great white's mouth are spares held in reserve, and new ones keep growing for life.
Q 08Young great whites have slender, pointed teeth suited to gripping which main prey?
Fish
Fish: juveniles live on fish and rays, and only as they grow do their teeth broaden into the saw-edged triangles that let adults carve up seals and dolphins.
Q 09Besides storing energy, what does a great white's oily liver do?
Adds buoyancy
Adds buoyancy: the oil is lighter than seawater, and tags show a great white growing less buoyant as a long migration burns its liver reserves away.
Q 10What unusual physiological trait lets the great white hunt in cold water?
It is partially warm-blooded
It is partially warm-blooded: a net of blood vessels traps the heat of its swimming muscles, keeping its core well above the sea's temperature, at the price of a huge appetite to fuel it.
Q 11Which animals do great whites often bite but rarely eat, probably because they carry too little fat?
Sea otters
Sea otters have no blubber, only dense fur, and one theory holds that great whites reject such low-fat prey, which is why bitten otters are rarely eaten.
Q 12Scientists estimate a great white's age by counting growth bands, like tree rings, in which body part?
Its vertebrae
Its vertebrae: the bands showed that males mature at about 26 and females at about 33, which is why great white numbers take so long to recover.
Q 13A 2008 computer model estimated that the largest great whites could bite with about how much force?
About 1,800 kg
Q 21A great white that keeps missing a bait may lift its head and rhythmically gape its jaws, a display read as what?
Frustration
Frustration is the leading reading: one researcher likened the display to a person punching a wall, a way to let off steam without provoking the other sharks nearby.
Q 22Which seals do great whites mainly target?
Newly weaned young
Newly weaned young are the best bargain: they carry thick blubber but are small, inexperienced and naive about what waits below, while an adult fights back with teeth and claws.
Q 23Great whites at Seal Island, near Cape Town, are famous for catching seals how?
Breaching clear of the water
About 1,800 kg: researchers scanned a young great white's jaws, rebuilt them in a computer and scaled the model up to the size of the largest adults.
Q 14What are the electroreceptive pits on a shark's snout called?
Ampullae of Lorenzini
Ampullae of Lorenzini are jelly-filled pores that pick up the faint electric field of a living body, so a great white can sense the beating heart of prey it cannot see.
Q 15Why does a great white swim constantly?
To ram water through its gills to breathe
To ram water through its gills to breathe: unlike nurse sharks, which can pump water over their gills while lying still, a great white gets oxygen only by moving forward.
Q 16How does a great white protect its eyes when attacking, given it lacks a nictitating membrane?
By rolling them back in their sockets
By rolling them back in their sockets as it strikes, since a thrashing seal fights back with teeth and claws; many other sharks slide a protective third eyelid across the eye instead.
Q 17The White Shark Café, an ocean spot where great whites gather each winter, lies halfway between North America and which islands?
Hawaii
Hawaii: Stanford researchers named the spot after their tags showed coastal sharks wintering far out at sea, making repeated deep 'bounce dives' that may be for feeding or for finding mates.
Q 18Great whites usually stay near the surface, but how deep have they dived?
About 1,300 metres
About 1,300 metres: near the coast great whites keep mostly to the top of the water column, and their deepest dives come on long open-ocean crossings.
Q 19A great white tagged off southern Africa swam to Australia and back within nine months, covering about how far?
20,000 km
20,000 km: the shark swam to Australia's north-west coast and back, a journey through several nations' waters that shows why a shark protected in one country is so hard to keep safe.
Q 20A great white usually cruises at a pace closest to which of these?
A person walking
A person walking: sharks carrying speed loggers off a seal colony swam at roughly 3 to 5 km/h, slower than their most efficient speed, which the researchers read as saving energy while the seals come to them.
Breaching clear of the water: the shark stalks from the depths and rockets up beneath a seal outlined against the surface, hitting so hard that both can leave the sea.
Q 24How do great whites usually attack toothed whales like dolphins?
From behind, beyond the prey's echolocation
They target the tail, underside or back; they are likelier to scavenge large whales than hunt them.
Q 25How do great whites settle disputes over prey?
Splash fights, slapping the surface with their tails
Splash fights, slapping the surface with their tails, let two sharks decide who keeps a kill without touching. Real combat is extremely rare, because a bite from a rival this well armed is too risky.
Q 26When two great whites swim side by side or circle each other, what are they thought to be doing?
Settling rank by size
Settling rank by size: observers have logged some twenty such rituals, and once they show who is bigger, the smaller shark gives way and nobody has to risk a fight.
Q 27How does the great white reproduce?
Eggs hatch inside the mother, who bears live pups
Eggs hatch inside the mother, who bears live pups after a pregnancy thought to last a year or more. In the womb they feed on yolk, then a uterine 'milk', then her unfertilised eggs.
Q 28In 2023, a pale pup thought to be a newborn great white was filmed from the air off which US state?
California
California: the pup was shedding a whitish film, perhaps left over from the womb, a hint that great whites give birth close to that southern coast.
Q 29Great whites were found to live 70 years or more once researchers dated them using carbon traces left by what?
Nuclear bomb tests
Nuclear bomb tests spiked the sea with radiocarbon, a timestamp laid down in growing sharks; it showed one male was 73, far older than anyone had thought a great white could be.
Q 30Where was the first recorded orca predation on a great white, in 1997?
The Farallon Islands
The Farallon Islands, off San Francisco, where a female orca killed a great white that year. Tagged sharks there have since been tracked fleeing as soon as orcas arrive, abandoning a rich hunting ground.