Paradise

Great white sharks are at the very top of the marine food chain. Feared as man-eaters, they are only responsible for about 5-10 attacks a year, which are rarely fatal. Great whites are ultimate predators. Powerful streamlined bodies and a mouth full of terrifyingly sharp, serrated teeth, combine with super senses that can detect a single drop of blood from over a mile away. Hiding from a great white isn't an option as they can detect and home in on small electrical discharges from hearts and gills. Unlike most other sharks, live young are born that immediately swim away.

The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a species of large lamniform shark which can be found in the coastal surface waters of all the major oceans. The great white shark is mainly known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached or exceeded 6.1 m (20 ft) in length, and 2,268 kg (5,000 lb) in weight. This shark reaches its maturity around 15 years of age and can have a life span of over 30 years.

The great white shark is arguably the world's largest known extant macropredatory fish, and is one of the primary predators of marine mammals. It is also known to prey upon a variety of other marine animals, including fish and seabirds. It is the only known surviving species of its genus Carcharodon, and is ranked first in having the most attacks on humans. The IUCN list the great white shark as a vulnerable species, while it is included in Appendix II of CITES. The bestselling novel Jaws by Peter Benchley and the subsequent blockbuster film by Steven Spielberg depicted the great white shark as a "ferocious man eater". In reality, humans are not the preferred prey of the great white shark.

There are two species of land iguana found in the Galapagos; this species Conolophus subcristatus, is found on six islands and Conolophus pallidus is found only on Santa Fe. This species is very large, growing to lengths of over a meter. The short head is blunt and the back legs are thick and powerful, with long sharp claws on the toes. It is yellowish in colour with blotches of white, black, rust and brown and a row of spines passes along the centre of the neck and back.

Galapagos land iguanas are active during the day. They maintain their body temperature by basking in the sun to warm up and seeking shade when they become too hot. In the morning they can be found basking, but during the heat of midday they tend to retreat into shade. At night they sleep in burrows which they dig themselves. This species is omnivorous but tends to mainly eat plants and the fruits and pads of cactus trees. They may remove the spines with their claws, and these cacti provide them with plenty of moisture during dry spells. This species has an interesting relationship with Galapagos finches; the iguanas often raise themselves from the ground and allow the finches to remove ticks from their bodies.

Males defend territories, with displays involving head bobbing, biting and tail thrashing. During courtship, males aggressively court the females. After mating, the females set off on a migration to suitable egg-laying habitat. On Ferdinanda Island, females are known to travel up to 15 km to reach a suitable nesting site. They then lay two to 20 eggs in a 50 cm deep burrow. The nest site is guarded for a number of days after laying, in order to prevent other females from laying in the same place and damaging the eggs. The young hatch after 85 to 110 days; it then takes them up to a week to dig their way out of the burrow. Maturity is reached between eight and 15 years. If they survive the first years of life, when they are most vulnerable to predation and food scarcity, land iguanas can live for up to 50 years.

Land iguanas are endemic to the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. Conolophus subcristatus is native to six islands. In 1835 when Charles Darwin first went to the Galapagos, land iguanas were extremely numerous; he wrote: “I cannot give a more forcible proof of their number, then by stating that when we were left at Santiago Island, we could not for some time find a spot free from their burrows on which to pitch our single tent”. Sadly, this once thriving Santiago Island population has become completely extinct. This iguana lives in the drier areas of the islands on which they occur, in scrubby habitats. Females require access to areas of sandy or loose soil in which to lay their eggs; some females even use the ash around dormant volcanic craters.

The adult Bald Eagle is mainly brown with a white head and tail. The sexes are identical in plumage, but females are larger than males. The beak is large and hooked. The plumage of the immature is brown. Bald Eagles are not actually bald, the name derives from the older meaning of the word, "white headed".
In the late 20th century the Bald Eagle was on the brink of extirpation in the continental United States, while flourishing in much of Alaska and Canada. Populations recovered and stabilized, so the species was removed from the U.S. federal government's list of endangered species and transferred to the list of threatened species on July 12, 1995, and it was removed from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife in the Lower 48 States on June 28, 2007.

Additionally, the Bald Eagle's close cousins, the longer-winged but shorter-tailed White-tailed Eagle and the overall larger Steller's Sea Eagle, may rarely vagrate to coastal Alaska from Asia.[6] At any rate, the Bald Eagle is certainly a large bird, with a body length of 70–102 centimeters (28–40 in). The wingspan is typically between 1.8 and 2.3 m (5.9 and 7.5 ft) and mass is usually between 3 and 6.3 kilograms (6.6 and 14 lb).[6] Females are about 25 percent larger than males, averaging 5.8 kg (13 lb), and against the males' average weight of 4.1 kg (9.0 lb).

The size of the bird varies by location and generally corresponds with Bergmann's rule, since the species increases in size further away from the Equator and the tropics. The smallest specimens are those from Florida, where mature males may weigh as little as 2.3 kg (5.1 lb) and have a wingspan of 1.68 m (5.5 ft). The largest eagles are from Alaska, where large females may weigh up to 7.5 kg (17 lb) and span 2.44 m (8.0 ft) across the wings.[4][9] Among standard linear measurements, the wing chord is 51.5–69 cm (20.3–27 in), the tail is 23–37 cm (9.1–15 in) long, and the tarsus is 8 to 11 cm (3.1 to 4.3 in). The culmen reportedly ranges from 3 to 7.5 cm (1.2 to 3.0 in), while the measurement from the gape to the tip of the bill is 7–9 cm (2.8–3.5 in).

The plumage of an adult Bald Eagle is evenly brown with a white head and tail. The tail is moderately long and slightly wedge-shaped. Males and females are identical in plumage coloration, but sexual dimorphism is evident in the species in that females are 25 percent larger than males. The beak, feet and irides are bright yellow. The legs are feather-free, and the toes are short and powerful with large talons. The highly developed talon of the hind toe is used to pierce the vital areas of prey while it is held immobile by the front toes. The beak is large and hooked, with a yellow cere.

The plumage of the immature is brown, speckled with white until the fifth (rarely fourth, very rarely third) year, when it reaches sexual maturity. Immature Bald Eagles are distinguishable from the Golden Eagle in that the former has a more protruding head with a larger beak, straighter edged wings which are held flat (not slightly raised) and with a stiffer wing beat, and feathers which do not completely cover the legs. The Bald Eagle has sometimes been considered the largest true raptor in North America, excluding the California Condor, which is a member of the New World vultures and may not be a true accipitrid. However, the Golden Eagle, in its American race, broadly overlaps in body weight and overall size with the Bald Eagle.