The 15 largest predators of all time!

And coming in at Number 3...

Robosharkcop

By artist Emerson Tung.

Sharks, Shakespeare and Shirley Jackson

Today I am delighted to be able to tell you that I am branching out and trying something new with my writing this year. I'm going to be editing not one but two short story anthologies for Snowbooks.

The first, and heading your way this time next year, is SHARKPUNK - an anthology of pulpy shark-themed stories that cover every speculative fiction sub-genre from steampunk to urban horror, by way of war-time tales of terror and post-modernist dark fantasy. SHARKPUNK features all new stories, from a host of genre writers, working at the top of their game, that includes the likes of Gary McMahon, Al Ewing and Toby Frost.

And after that, there's Mr William Shakespeare's Tales of Cthulhu*, which blends some of the Bard's most well-known and best-loved plays with the eldritch squamous horrors of H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.

In other Short Story Saturday-related news, The Book of the Dead, edited by Jared Shurin, and which features my mummy-themed love story Egyptian death and the afterlife: mummies (Rooms 62-3), has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award, for Best Anthology, which is nice.

* Working title.

Slow-moving killer

The Greenland shark is one of the slowest-moving fish ever recorded and has been found with reindeer, polar bears, and fast-moving seals in its stomach. It's thought that Greenland sharks prey upon sleeping seals, which snooze in the water to avoid polar bears.

Megamouth!

One of the rarest sharks is the megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios, meaning "giant mouth of the deep"). Fewer than 100 specimens of the beast have ever been seen. It was first discovered in in 1976 when struck by and tangled in the anchor of a Navy ship off Hawaii. The animal can grow up to 15 feet (4.6 meters) long and is a filter feeder, syphoning plankton from the water.

Did you know some sharks can reproduce without having to mate first?

Some captive female sharks have been known to reproduce without the aid of a male, essentially cloning themselves. In 2001, a female hammerhead shark gave birth in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska without mating with a male, taking researchers by surprise. It's an example of parthenogenesis, wherein embryos can be created without external fertilisation, and has been seen in all types of animals except for mammals.

It's not sharks, but it's still totally gross and freaky