Begin broad, then narrow
Body shape, habitat, and depth usually get you farther than memorizing isolated facts.
Reference guide
How to Identify a Shark in Field-Guide Terms
This page is a plainspoken walkthrough of how Pocket Shark expects a reader to identify a shark: start broad, narrow by body plan and habitat, then use compare pages and species profiles.
How to use the guideField-guide workflowIndex now
Use compare pages when the shortlist is small
The site's pair and cluster pages exist to solve those final sorting questions.
Keep the method reusable
A reader should be able to carry this approach from one shark group to another.
Useful next pages
Keep moving through the field guide with the pages that make this one more useful.
Shark Identification Guide
The broader identification hub this page complements.
Shark Head Shapes
A visual follow-up for one of the most helpful body-plan cues.
Common Shark Name Confusions
A support page when the naming, not the anatomy, is the main problem.
Keep the guide offline
Pocket Shark is built as an offline shark field guide for iPhone and iPad, so the same comparisons, glossary notes, and species context can stay with you away from a browser.
Get the field guide on the App Store