Seeing a shark can be pretty scary. It’s okay to admit that. Sharks are some of the ocean's most powerful predators. And yes, they do occasionally bite humans that enter their habitat. However, the notion that sharks are the vengeful, human-eating beasts that we see in the movies couldn’t be farther from the truth. On the contrary, an estimated 100 million sharks are killed by humans each year, putting a number of species on the brink of extinction. While we often villainize them in our stories, sharks may actually have more reasons to fear us.

Dive deep into the world of animals, science, and natural history in our original video series Nat Geo Explores.

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