SOLVING DNA OF GREAT WHITE MAY HELP PRESERVE SPECIES

WHOSE YOUR DADDY? GREAT WHITE SHARKS PARENT FOUND  link to Fox News article here!

..."Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) are the biggest meat-eating shark in the world, with some reaching more than 20 feet long and weighing more than 5,000 pounds. They hunt in more of the world's seas than any other sharks, ranging across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, from the cold waters near the Antarctic to the tropical waters near the equator, cruising up to 43 miles per hour in pursuit of prey.

Their numbers are rapidly declining worldwide, however, mostly because of accidental entanglement in fishing nets.

''You just really don't get fossil sharks preserved this nicely anywhere in the world.'

- Dana Ehret, a vertebrate paleontologist at Monmouth University

The evolutionary history of the great white has been contested by paleontologists for 150 years. They were originally classified as direct relatives of megatooth sharks such as the extinct Carcharocles megalodon, the largest carnivorous shark that ever lived.

Fossils of a newfound species of shark, Carcharodon hubbelli, suggest the modern great white actually may have descended from broad-toothed mako sharks. Researchers say the newfound species represents a possible midway point in the evolution from one to the other."