From ancient Megalodons to fearsome Great Whites, this is the complete, untold story of how sharks emerged as Earth's ultimate survivors, by a world-leading paleontologist

Sharks have been fighting for their lives for 500 million years and are under dire threat today. They are the longest surviving vertebrate on Earth, outlasting multiple mass extinction events that decimated life on the planet. How did they thrive so long? By developing superpower-like abilities that allowed them to ascend to the top of the oceanic food chain. Yet they often found themselves in the shadows of larger, more formidable killers--and they not only survived, but also took their crown as the king of the sea. The Secret History of Sharks is the thrilling story of sharks' unparalleled reign.

Because of recent technological breakthroughs scientists' understanding of sharks has taken a quantum leap forward in the last decade. John Long has been on the cutting edge of this research and in this masterwork weaves a fully updated and unexpected tale of shark's extraordinary evolutionary adventure. Along the way, The Secret History of Sharks introduces an enormous range of incredible organisms: a thirty-foot-long shark with a deadly saw blade of jagged teeth protruding from its lower jaws, a monster giant clams crusher, and bizarre sharks fossilized while in their mating ritual, and also includes startling new facts about the mighty Megalodon, with its sixty-six-foot-long body, massive jaws, and six-inch serrated teeth that allowed it to dismember baleen whales.

The book showcases the global search to discover sharks' secret history, led by Long and dozens of other extraordinary scientists. They embark on digs to all seven continents, investigating layers of earth to reveal never-before-found fossils and the clues to sharks' singular story. With insights into the threats to sharks today, how sharks contribute to medical advances, and the lessons sharks can teach us for our own survival, The Secret History of Sharks is a thrilling story of scientific discovery with ramifications far beyond the ocean.
About the Author: John Long is the Strategic Professor of Paleontology at Flinders University in Adelaide, one of Australia's largest paleontological research groups. The former vice president of research and collections at the Museum of Natural History of Los Angeles County in California, he has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers and 150 popular science articles. He writes regularly for The Conversation, including a viral piece on Megalodon. A passionate communicator of science, he speaks frequently at venues ranging from the American Museum of Natural History and The Philadelphia Academy of Sciences to UC Berkeley and the Hammer Museum. His work has appeared in Nature, Science and Scientific American.