Question: How many species of shark are there? What is the biggest? What is the tallest?

Chris Werner answered on 17 Nov 2017:

Sharks aren’t really measured by ‘how tall’ as they can’t stand (that’d be a sight!). The whale shark is indeed the biggest, followed by the basking shark at between 12-14 metres I believe. They can be found off the coast of Ireland sometimes, but don’t worry both of these are harmless! They feed on plankton etc, and pose no threat to humans! They’re like whales (hence whale shark!). There was a shark which lived off Peru 3 million years ago called Megalodon, which was basically a great white on steroids, which reached 15 metres long, and fed on whales just as big! Glad I wasn’t around then!