SHARK...MAJESTIC KING OF THE THAI SEA

There was a legend, being told in the past, from generation to generation, about a large whale with lined up fangs that upset the ship and ate people. Another story might connect to a very long eel, waiting to bite any swimmer. Most of those legends had faded away with times. The remaining few always make people’s hair stand on end when being told.

Four hundred million years ago, when the world was full of ancient animals, sharks emerged in the blue world. Events evolved in history. Dinosaur was extinct. Mammals dominate the world. But king of the sea is the same. Until five million years ago the first homo sapien e merged. From the age of smoke signal to the internet era, the said legends would continue to exist until the time when man destroy this world by his own greed and negligence.

Here comes the time to share legends about shark…majestic king of the Thai Sea.

Getting to know sharks

Among 21,000 types of fish in the world, approximately 960 of them are cartilaginous fishes. Their bones are clear crunching chewable, clearly different from those of osteichthyes fishes. Among these, about 300 of them are categorized in the shark group. Other than that they are rays, guitarfishes, sawfishes and others like dogfishes.

Ground shark is the first group of shark to be introduced. They look very much like the ideal sharks. There are about 200 types in this group. Many types of shark we know like tiger shark, mullet head shark are in this group. Carpet shark is the next to be introduced. There are about 33 types of them including the big brother of the sea…whale shark. The last group is Mackerel shark, which includes white shark.

Many people might like to know why it is so confusing, such as why is tiger shark in the different group as white shark. I am pleased to inform that this is merely a tip of the iceberg. If we categorize them according to the scientific definition, you will have to swallow a whole bunch of Latin language. I spent almost one night trying to categorize them – with failure - because it got to be even more confusing. Finally, I came back to the above method, chopping out more than half of the details. Please do not worry. The parts I have not mentioned cannot be found in Thailand anyway.