Shark Week's Good, Bad and Ugly

August 01, 2008

All this week I've had an epaulette shark photo on my desktop for Shark Week inspiration. Since several of these pics didn't make the cut in our coverage, I'd like to share them with you here. Credit goes to Goran Nilsson.

Check out the cool camouflage.
Now you see me.
'

Now you (almost) don't. When this individual wraps around the substrate, it can hide to catch unsuspecting prey. Keep in mind that in other locations, the shark's spots and coloration mirror the shallow reef bottom.

To the bad news, "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest, as you might've heard, was bitten by a small shark just a few days ago.

Seacrest said he at first thought the shark "was a stick."  He added, "I saw it swim, he took a bite and then it left." Instead of finding a splinter in his skin, he later found a shark's tooth.

Now there's been a rumor that all of this was cooked up by AI and Discovery. I can only tell you that if a memo went out, it never hit my desk. Shark bites obviously do happen, and most nips, like that experienced by Seacrest, go unreported. He was swimming off the coast of Mexico, where more than usual shark/human encounters have occurred this year. It's a mystery as to why so far, but it could just be that greater numbers of people are descending upon shark territory.

To the "ugly" part mentioned in the title, perhaps the most viewed Shark Week clip of all time has to be the below, which is extremely graphic, I have to warn you.

It's my understanding that the divers were trying to prove that sharks don't attack humans when unprovoked. The problem is that "unprovoked" isn't in a shark's mindset. Sharks often take a bite out of this or that to see if it's edible. Old tires, shoes, tin cans and all sorts of things have suffered bite marks as a result. We can now add Ryan Seacrest to the list.

Here's the story in his own words.