SHORT DESCRIPTION
Heavy spindle-shaped body, moderately long conical snout. Anterior teeth enlarged; anterior, intermediate and lateral teeth compressed and forming a continuous cutting edge; intermediate teeth enlarged and over two-thirds height of adjacent anteriors, with reversed cusps that are directed anteromesially; second lower anterior teeth moderately enlarged and about as high or usually lower than second upper anterior tooth; total tooth count 44 to 52; roots of anterior teeth broadly arched, with root lobes broad and not elongated; lateral cusplets present only on teeth of smaller sharks below about 3 m long, but lost in adults; teeth with serrated edges; cusps of anterior teeth not strongly flexed. Long gill slits, large first dorsal fin with dark free rear tip, minute. First dorsal-fin origin usually over the pectoral inner margins. Anal-fin origin under or slightly posterior to second dorsal-fin insertion. Strong keels on caudal peduncle, no secondary keels on caudal base, crescentic caudal fin.
color: Dorsal surface lead grey or brownish grey to blackish above, ventral surface of body white, iris of eye conspicuously black, margin between dorsal dark and ventral white surfaces sharply delimited.
size: Maximum total length to about 6 m, and possibly to 640 cm or more. Size at birth is assumed as being between 109 and about 165 cm, with term fetuses at 100 to 165 cm and free-living young down to 109 to 129 cm.

BIOLOGY / ECOLOGY
Ovoviviparous (aplacental viviparous) and practices uterine cannibalism, apparently in the form of embryos and fetuses eating large numbers of nutritive eggs (oophagy). The gestation period is not known but could be a year or more, and may or may not include taking a year off to recuperate. There are few records of pregnant females and litter size, which varies from 2 to possibly 14 young. Females mature between 4 and 5 m long and 12 to 14 years old and reach at least 23 years old, while males mature between 3.5 and 4.1 m long and 9 or 10 years old (ageing from growth rings on vertebral centra, assumed to be annual). Newest investigation suggest up to 73 years of maximum age for the largest male and 40 years for the largest female. Its diet in different areas may vary according to the availability (including abundance) and vulnerability of suitable prey, as well as by motivation of the predator.
Live prey of individual white sharks is mostly marine vertebrates and invertebrates smaller than itself, ranging in size from small schooling fishes and squid to elephant seals and grey whale calves. The chief prey categories of the white shark are ray-finned bony fishes, cartilaginous fishes, marine mammals, marine birds, cephalopods, and crustaceans, with marine reptiles (sea turtles) and gastropods being relatively unimportant.
habitat: Often occurs close inshore to the surfline and even penetrates shallow bays, estuaries and the intertidal zone in continental coastal waters, but also frequents offshore continental and oceanic islands (especially those with pinniped colonies) and inshore and offshore fish banks. Found at the surface down to the bottom in epicontinental waters but rarely ranges down the continental slope, where it was caught on a bottom longline at 1280 m.

STATUS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
Records are declining despite increased scientific monitoring. Its presence in the Adriatic was related to abundance of tuna. There was a lack of any records in the period 1974-2003 in the Easter Adriatic but later a few records were recorded. Previously it was thought that area around Sicily is nursery area of this species, but later Tunisian area was considered as more important. Recent data indicate certain shift/migration to the eastern Mediterranean where there is an increase of records, compared to historical. Hence, several neonates have been caught suggesting a spawning and nursery area of the great white shark off Turkey, particulary in the northeastern Aegean Sea . IUCN Red List category for Med: Endangered.