What we can learn from sharks—evolutionary marvels that have survived for 450 million years, and are essential to our planet’s ecosystem.

We’re conditioned to see sharks as terrifying, cold-blooded underwater predators. But as Ocean Guardian founder William McKeever reveals, we need to ensure that their remarkable longevity continues. The first book to reveal in full the hidden lives of sharks, Emperors of the Deep focuses on four species—Mako, Tiger, Hammerhead, and Great White—as never before, including such fascinating details as:

Sharks are 50 million years older than trees
Sharks have survived five extinction level events, including the one that killed off the dinosaurs
Sharks have electroreception, a sixth sense that lets them pick up on electric fields generated by living things
Sharks can dive 4,000 feet below the surface
Sharks account for only six human fatalities per year, while humans kill 100 million sharks per year

McKeever goes back through time to probe the shark’s prehistoric secrets and how it has become the world’s most feared, and most misunderstood, predator, and takes us on a pulse-pounding tour around the world and deep under the surface, from the frigid waters of the Arctic Circle to the coral reefs of the tropical Central Pacific. He also interviews ecologists, conservationists, and world-renowned shark experts, including the founders of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, the head of the Massachusetts Shark Research Program, and the self-professed “last great shark hunter.”

At once a deep dive into the misunderstood world of sharks and an urgent call to protect them, Emperors of the Deep celebrates this wild species that hold the key to unlocking the mysteries of the ocean—if we can prevent their extinction from climate change and human hunters.

“Many astonishing facts.” —The Guardian

“[An] extraordinary book [that] rarely fails to inform and delight.” —The Washington Times

Includes photographs

William Mckeever