4. Pennant’s 1776 account of Great White Sharks was seminal.
In the 18th century, Europe’s men of letters and science were keen to know more about the natural world. Numerous expeditions were undertaken, many of them with the aim of learning more about different species or charting unknown lands. Thomas Pennant was one of the greatest naturalists of the age. Born in Wales in 1726, he was a prolific author, focusing on zoology. And, though Thomas himself never travelled outside of Europe, his account of sharks were highly influential. In fact, his 1776 essay on the great white shark was to form the basis of our popular understanding of the fearsome predator for more than a century.
Pennant’s account made for terrifying reading. Far from depicting sharks as apex predators that only posed a minimal risk to humans, he described them as bloodthirsty maneaters. He wrote: “They reach very great dimensions. There is a report of a whole human corpse being found in the stomach of one of these monsters, which is by no means beyond belief considering their huge fondness for human flesh. They are the nightmare of seamen in all the hot climates, where they constantly follow ships waiting for anything that might fall overboard. A man who has this misfortune inexorably perishes…Very often, swimmers are killed by them. Sometimes, they lose an arm or a leg, and at other times are cut in two by this insatiable animal.”
Pennant was cited as a key influence by numerous scholars, both during his lifetime and after his death in 1798. His descriptions of numerous species of birds, reptiles and mammals would be used by scientists for decades. Moreover, his frightening description of sharks helped establish their unfair reputation as monsters and man-eaters.