The great white is a huge predatory shark. It is the least pelagic of the lamnids, prefering to haunt the near shore environment. It frequently takes porpoises, seals and sea lions as prey, ambushing them with a quick sprint from below. The sudden high speed impact often leads to spectacular sprays of water and blood as the shark's momentum carries it up out of the water in a spectacular leap with its mangled, disemboweled, or dismembered quarry still in its jaws. Despite this, fish make up the majority of its diet. It is also known to scavenge, with whale carcases a welcome source of food when they occur.
The habits of great whites are poorly understood. They are known to migrate long distances along coastlines and even between continents - one female journeyed from South Africa to Australia and back within the span of one year, while many sharks show up in California to prey on sea lions for part of the year, and then dissapear. Thier social interactions are not known.
Because of its near shore habits, the great white encounters people more frequently than other lamnids. It does not seem to regard humans as food, but rather objects of curiosity. Unfortunately, a curious great white will explore the object of its interest by biting it gently. What is gentle to a great white can cause severe lacerations, blood loss, amputations and even death to a human. In other cases, white sharks may have mistaken humans for a seal or porpoise when the human was silhouetted above the shark. After one bite, the shark would break off the attack, not caring for the taste of man-flesh, and leaving a mangled skin diver or surfboarder exanguinating in the water. Fortunately, attacks by great whites are rare. Often, a visual inspection is enough to satisfy this predator's curiosity. It is also curious about other floating objects, and will occasionally stick its head up out of the water to get a look around. These surface exursions lead to a number of additional sightings by humans.