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The shark in 'Jaws' is 20+ feet long. Are there sharks that big off Georgia's coast?
This year marks the 50th anniversary of "Jaws," a classic film that has caused a fascination and terror around sharks.
While shark attacks are fairly rare, sharks are swimming along Georgia's coast. But are they anything like the "Jaws" monster? Here's what we know:
In the original novel, the Jaws shark was 20 feet long. Around 1 hour and 23 minutes into the movie, a boat crew hunting for the shark spots it and Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss) says, "That's a 20-footer." Quint (played by Robert Shaw) answers, " three tons of him."
Fun fact: The movie shark was known as Bruce by the cast and crew. He was named after director Steven Spielberg's lawyer.
New England Aquarium senior scientist Nick Whitney said "The largest white sharks that have been reliably measured are right around 20 feet, and any larger than this is likely impossible. We know this because scientists have been able to calculate the size of white sharks at different ages and show that their growth levels off when they hit around 40 years old. So you could roughly estimate a white shark's age based on it's length for its first few decades of life, but if you measured several white sharks between the ages of 40 and 70, their lengths would all be similar. They're just not going to reach 25 feet. Anything between 16 and 20 feet is a real monster."
So the movie "Jaws" shark is impossible, but the novel "Jaws" shark is? Technically, yes, but it's worth mentioning that the National Smithsonian says most are smaller with average females being 15-16 feet and average males being 11-13 feet. Also, great whites only weigh a maximum of around two tons.
NOAA says, when great whites are born, they are about four-feet long.
The OCEARCH Shark Tracker has data on the whereabouts of more than 400 sharks. There have been four sharks identified and tagged off the Florida/Georgia coast since the New Year, including three great whites:
Contender the male, adult, almost 14-foot great white was tagged on Jan. 17. He's recently been spending a lot of time way off the coast over the Blake Plateau (more than 80 miles offshore) but was recently pinged off the North Carolina coast.
Danny the male, sub-adult, 9-foot, 462-pound great white was tagged on Jan. 17. He's been traveling up and down the east coast with his last swim near Georgia being in early March. He is currently off North Carolina's coast.
Dold the male, sub-adult, 11-foot, 761-pound great white was tagged on Feb. 28, has since been circling the state of Florida, and is currently on the state's west coast.
The largest kind of shark that's alive today is the whale shark, which averages 18 to 32 feet in length but can grow close to 62 feet, according to the Georgia Aquarium. But don't worry, its diet is zoo plankton.
The largest shark to ever exist (but is luckily extinct) is the Megalodon, also known as the Giant Megatooth. It resembled great whites, but the Smithsonian says it was up to three times bigger averaging 44 to 56 feet for females and 34 to 47 feet for males. The largest were roughly 60 feet in length and possibly weighed up to 50 tons, the size and weight of a railroad car. Fun fact: Its scientific name "Carcharocles megalodon" translates to "Big toothed glorious shark."
There are four "Jaws" movies including "Jaws 2," "Jaws 3-D," and "Jaws: The Revenge." However, while the first was a cultural phenomenon and considered one of the greatest movies of all time, the sequels
Each sequel was given terrible scores by critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes with "Jaws: The Revenge" landing an astounding 2% from critics and 15% from audiences. Popular movie YouTuber Dan Murrell has argued that "Jaws 2" was the start of Hollywood's obsession with unnecessary (and sometimes horrible) sequels that can't hold a candle to the original.
All four of the "Jaws" movies are available to stream for subscribers of Peacock. Also, if you want to buy the original, on-demand services like Amazon Prime and Fandango at Home are offering it for the discounted price of $8 and Apple TV is offering an even deeper discount at $5.
Miguel Legoas is a Deep South Connect Team Reporter for Gannett/USA Today. Find him on Instagram @miguelegoas and email at mlegoas@
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Jaws shark was 25 feet long. Are there real sharks that big in Georgia?
