After so many films that show an exaggerated violent behavior of sharks, these amazing sea inhabitants have become the nightmare that everybody dread on their holidays. However, only few shark species really pose significant risk to a happy stay in the beach.

Although sharks are all predators, from the 300 known species of sharks, only 4 have attacked humans. One hundred of shark attacks are recorded through a year. Instead, a hundred million sharks die each year because of the higher value of their fins.

Did you know that sharks have 7 senses? The sixth sense allows them to detect their prey using electric fields through the “ampullae of Lorenzini”, situated around the mouth and connected to the side openings of the skin. The seventh sense allows them to find prey at great distances and swimming blindly through the detection of low frequency waves in the water.

The world of sharks is far more intriguing than we thought several decades ago. For example, did you know that white sharks can live more than 100 years? Did you know that the smaller they are, they have a more developed brain?

Xcaret is the ideal place to learn more about these creatures. Here you can interact with one of the more harmless species of sharks: the nurse shark, which live in shallow tropical and subtropical parts of the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic and Pacific East Coast. The shark lives on Earth before the time of the dinosaurs, they’re ovoviviparous and can reach four meters in length.

Your experience with sharks at Xcaret starts on a platform where you have direct contact with them. Highly skilled trainers will explain the physiology, reproduction and hunting habits of sharks. In this activity you can touch them and also snorkel near them, always with supervision of our trainers. We’ll take you some photos, thus you can buy and keep them as a memory of this great adventure at Xcaret.