Shark
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139 free Shark trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Shark trivia questions with answers. Shark trivia lives in two places on BrainPickle. This page is the shorter set; the main quiz is Sharks trivia, with our deepest question pool on the topic and a source behind every answer.
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Q 01What is the skeleton of a shark primarily made of?
Cartilage
Cartilage, the same gristly tissue as in human ears and nose tips, is much lighter than bone, which helps a shark stay buoyant.
Q 02How many gill slits do most shark species typically have on each side of their head?
5
While some species like the sevengill shark have more, the majority of shark species possess five gill slits on each side of their head.
Q 03Which shark sense organs detect the electrical fields generated by prey's muscle contractions?
Ampullae of Lorenzini
Ampullae of Lorenzini are jelly-filled pores around the snout, sensitive enough to find prey lying hidden under the sand.
Q 04Which term describes shark species that lay eggs, often in leathery cases, outside the mother's body?
Oviparous
Oviparous sharks, such as horn sharks, lay eggs that develop and hatch externally, often protected by tough egg cases commonly called 'mermaid's purses'.
Q 05What does the whale shark, the largest fish in the sea, mainly eat?
Plankton and krill
Plankton and krill are strained from the water by the whale shark, which can also hang upright and open its mouth so that food-rich water rushes in.
Q 06What is the term for sharks having to swim continuously to force water over their gills?
Ram ventilation
Ram ventilation is not the only way to breathe: less active sharks such as nurse sharks can lie on the seabed, sucking water in and squeezing it over their gills.
Q 07Roughly how many teeth can a shark go through in its lifetime?
Tens of thousands
Tens of thousands: some sharks get through 30,000 or more, because new teeth keep moving forward from the rows behind to replace any that break or fall out.
Q 08Which shark's favourite prey is the stingray, which it finds buried in sand by sweeping the seabed like a metal detector?
Hammerhead
Hammerhead sharks spread their electrical sensors across that wide head to scan the sand, and great hammerheads have been seen pinning stingrays down with it before biting.
Q 09A shark's skin is often said to feel like what?
Sandpaper
Sandpaper is the usual comparison: the skin is covered in tiny tooth-like scales, all pointing towards the tail, that cut drag in the water but feel rough to the touch.
Q 10Which organ, enormous in sharks, keeps them buoyant in place of a swim bladder?
The liver
The liver, full of light oil, only partly makes up for the missing swim bladder, so sharks also rely on lift from their fins as they swim to hold their depth.
Q 11Which sense organ lets sharks feel the vibrations and pressure changes made by prey moving through the water?
Lateral line
Lateral line pores open onto tiny hair cells that register water movement, giving a shark a kind of touch at a distance; the same system helps fish keep together in schools.
Q 12What are the small, tooth-like scales covering a shark's skin called?
Dermal denticles
Dermal denticles all point towards the tail, which cuts drag as water flows over them, and a growing shark sheds them and replaces them with larger ones.
Q 13Greenland sharks were shown to live for centuries by radiocarbon dating the centre of which body part?
The eye lens
Q 21Which aquarium was the first to keep a great white on display long-term, for nearly 200 days in 2004-05?
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium had lost its first great white after 11 days in 1984 because it would not eat, and before the 2004 shark none had survived more than 16 days in any tank.
Q 22What material makes up the outer, hardest layer of a shark's tooth?
Enameloid
Enameloid in shark teeth is built from fluorapatite, a fluoride mineral, yet a 2012 study found that shark teeth are no harder than human ones.
Q 23What trance-like state do some sharks enter when they are turned upside down?
Tonic immobility
The eye lens grows in layers through life, so the tissue at its centre dates from the shark's earliest days; a 2016 study put one five-metre shark at around 400 years old.
Q 14What term describes sharks such as Great Whites leaping entirely out of the water when hunting seals?
Breaching
Breaching follows a vertical charge: the great white rushes a seal from deep below so fast that its momentum carries it clear of the surface.
Q 15Which small shark was the first shown to be an omnivore, digesting the seagrass that fills much of its gut?
Bonnethead
Bonnethead sharks swallow so much seagrass that it can make up 62% of their gut contents, and a 2018 study showed they digest about half of it rather than passing it as waste.
Q 16Cookiecutter sharks have left bite craters in which part of submarines?
Sonar domes
Sonar domes carry the same round craters these small sharks gouge out of whales and tuna, and the damage has made the species a nuisance to navies.
Q 17Which whale shark feature do researchers photograph to identify individual animals, like a fingerprint?
Spot pattern on the skin
Spot pattern on the skin is unique to each whale shark, and since 2005 researchers have matched photographs of it with a pattern-matching algorithm borrowed from astronomy.
Q 18What is the main job of the spiracle, an opening behind each eye in many bottom-dwelling sharks?
Water intake for respiration
Water intake for respiration: a shark resting on the seabed draws water in through the spiracle to its gills, so it can breathe without swimming and while its mouth is busy eating.
Q 19What term describes sharks whose eggs hatch inside the mother before live birth?
Ovoviviparous
Ovoviviparous sharks hatch inside the mother, and in makos and porbeagles the unborn pups then feed on unfertilised eggs she keeps producing; many biologists now call this aplacental viviparity.
Q 20What is the common name for the smallest known shark species?
Dwarf Lanternshark
The dwarf lanternshark, known only from deep water off Colombia and Venezuela, reaches about 20 cm at most and, like other lanternsharks, produces its own light.
Tonic immobility sets in within about a minute and can last around 15 minutes, so researchers turn sharks over on purpose to handle them safely.
Q 24What did a 2021 study blame for a 71% fall in oceanic shark and ray numbers since 1970?
Overfishing
Overfishing: fishing pressure on these ocean-going species rose 18-fold over the period, leaving three-quarters of them threatened with extinction.
Q 25Which swimwear brand modelled the ridged fabric of its Fastskin racing suits on shark skin?
Speedo
Speedo said the ridges channelled water as a shark's skin does, but a 2012 Harvard study found the suit's surface did nothing to cut drag: 'it's nothing like shark skin at all'.
Q 26Which low-density oil fills the organ sharks rely on to stay buoyant?
Squalene
Squalene takes its name from Squalus, a genus of sharks, and demand for it in cosmetics and vaccines is one reason deep-sea sharks are still fished.
Q 27Which shark species has a whip-like tail, as long as its body, used to stun prey?
Thresher shark
Thresher sharks were long only suspected of hunting with the tail, until film shot off the Philippines in 2010 showed single slaps stunning several sardines at once.
Q 28Which pink-skinned deep-sea shark shoots its jaws forward to snatch prey from beneath a long, flat snout?
Goblin
The goblin shark flings its jaws out at up to 3.1 metres a second, the fastest jaw thrust measured in any shark, which makes up for its being a weak swimmer.
Q 29A 2020 study found that whale sharks protect which body part with a covering of tiny tooth-like scales?
Their eyeballs
Their eyeballs are armoured with scales shaped differently from those on the body, and a whale shark can also pull each eye deep back into its socket for protection.
Q 30What nourishes hammerhead pups in the womb?
A placenta
A placenta forms when the embryo's used-up yolk sac attaches to the wall of the womb, and blood vessels running through it then feed the pup until birth.