In this beautifully illustrated book, shark expert Mark Carwardine tells the story of these wonderful creatures from their early beginnings to their struggle for survival today. He describes their origins and ancestors, introduces the diversity of sharks, marvels at their perfectly designed bodies, explains how they reproduce, investigates their reputation as the ultimate killing machines and finds out how these little-known animals are being studied. He even reveals how and where to jump into the sea for a real-life close encounter with a wild shark. Of course, the fearsome reputation of sharks travels before them. But how much truth is there in the fishermen's tales that have circulated for centuries? Mark puts our irrational fears into perspective by presenting the facts and exploding the fallacies. Far from being killing machines with a taste for human flesh, most sharks are quite nervous of people. There would be many more attacks if they really were out to get us. We pose a far greater threat to sharks than they do to us. According to the most widely accepted scientific estimate, over 100 million sharks are killed by people every year.