FEATURES

Lions of the Sea
You may have heard the old joke: What does a 500-pound gorilla eat for breakfast? Answer: anything it wants to! You could say the same thing about the great white shark. Find out how and what the great white eats…and why humans usually aren’t on the menu.
By Jeanne Miller

Megalodon and the Cryptozoologists
The largest shark who ever lived swam in the warm shallow waters of a younger Earth. Who was this ancient monster who was one of the world’s mot dangerous animals? And how do scientist know about a shark that went extinct 1.5 million years ago? Who is Megalodon’s modern-day relative, and what is the crucial difference between them?
By Mary Beth Cox

Rockin’ With the Sharks
It may seem strange to go looking for the fossil remains of ancient sharks in a dry gulch in Montana, far from the ocean. But professor Eileen Grogan has spent summers in Bear Gulch, finding amazingly preserved fossils of sharks and other sea creatures buried there 318 million years ago. By Dan Risch

Swimming with the Sharks
Imagine swimming under 6 feet of arctic ice…with a shark! Shark scientist Greg Skomal has, and it gave him the opportunity to study one of the largest and most mysterious ocean predators, the Greenland Shark. Learn how you, too, could become a shark scientist.
By Greg Skomal

The Shark Family Tree
With more than 450 shark species in the world, how do scientists classify them? And where can these different sharks be found in the world’s oceans? Explore the shark “family tree” and find out!
By Marcia Amidon Lusted

Shark Attack!
Say that for some strange reason you actually want to get a shark to attack you…what should you do? Read about the steps to becoming a shark magnet, and find out what it’s really like from someone who survived a shark attack.
By Kathryn Hulick

Mary Catherine Seeks Safe Shore
Mary Catherine’s done it again…chosen an impossible topic for her group to report on for science class. What will they come up with?
A play by Nick D’Alto

GOT Sharks?

Can sharks live in an aquarium filled with their favorite food (smaller fish), plus human divers, without eating the fish or taking a chunk out of the humans? And how do sharks get from the ocean to a giant aquarium tank?

By David Feeley

Person to Discover: A Visit with the Shark Lady, Dr. Eugenie Clark
She’s loved everything about fish since she was 9 years old. Meet Dr. Eugenie Clark and see how she came to be a shark scientist and expert, and how she’s still diving with sharks at the age of 87!
By Susan Barnes and Steven R. Wills

ACTIVITIES

Do You Know the truth About Sharks?
Test your knowledge about sharks facts and myths!
By Kathiann M. Kowalski

Why a Swimming Shark is a Flying Fish
What would you say if you were told that sharks don’t really swim, they fly…in water? Try this activity and see for yourself.
By Nick D’Alto

DEPARTMENTS

Science Scoops
Speeding Sharks
The Most Ferocious Bite
Hubble’s Troubles
Planet Pictures
Spiders in Space?
By Kathryn Hulick

Ask Dr. Cy Borg
Why does the sky turn pink at sunup and sundown?

What is It?
Is it a strange kind of seaweed? A new kind of fruit? The latest fashion accessory? No, it’s an egg case from a port Jackson shark, found washed up on a beach in Australia. The corkscrew-shaped flanges help the shark mother secure the case in rock crevices. Egg cases like this were sometimes called “mermaid’s purses” when found on beaches.

Animal Angles
Cute as a Cookie? Not This Shark
It’s small, slow moving, and it glows…but it feasts on larger, faster fish and marine mammals.

By Peg Lopata

Brain Strain
Some mermaids spend their days swimming in the ocean and playing a game called Ocean Dreams. Try it for yourself and develop your own strategy!

Star Chart and Stargazing with Jack Horkheimer

You’ve Got Mail!
ODYSSEY's reader response department welcomes your letters, original poems, stories, drawings, and responses to questions!
E-mail odysseymagazine@caruspub.com with You’ve Got Mail! as the subject, or snail mail You’ve Got Mail, ODYSSEY
30 Grove St., Suite C
Peterborough, NH 03458

Consulting Editor

Dr. Gregory Skomal is a senior fisheries biologist with Massachusetts Marine Fisheries, where he heads the Massachusetts Shark Research Program (MSRP). He is also an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts School of Marine Science, a guest investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, MA, and an adjunct scientist with the Center for Shark Research in Sarasota, FL. He holds a Ph.D. in marine biology from Boston University. Skomal’s research into the life history, ecology, and physiology of sharks has spanned the globe from the frigid waters of the Arctic Circle to coral reefs in the tropical central Pacific Ocean. He has written numerous research papers and books, and is an accomplished underwater explorer and photographer who has appeared in film and television documentaries, including programs for National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, and ESPN. His latest book is The Shark Handbook: The Essential Guide for Understanding the Sharks of the World. (Cider Mill Press Books, 2008).