Mermaid Jumps Shark

The trailer is out for a film called "Great White Shark: Beyond the Cage of Fear."

There's nothing wrong with a cast of Chippendale's divers (and one "mermaid") trying to "destroy the myth of a mindless killing machine," mind you. But I can't stop laughing over the filmmaker's zany and misguided conceit: dressing a grown woman as a fish (OK, half-fish) so she can briefly get into the frame with a Great White and thus prove that "a shark knows the difference between Us and Dinner." But this picture doesn't tell a thousand words. In fact, it's just too unintentionally ridiculous for words.

Talk about "jumping the shark."

If the 3-meter Great White in that shot turns on that Daryl Hannah look-alike, does it disprove the hypothesis? Then again, how could it, because SHE'S DRESSED AS A FISH!? And if it doesn't, does that confirm the hypothesis -- or simply prove that sharks prefer beefcakes to blondes?

Fun Viewing: Tagging A Great White (UPDATED)

Watch in this National Geographic video as a team of "Shark Men" researchers hauls a Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias) out of the leady waters off Guadalupe to tag it and release it -- perhaps a bit harried but unharmed.

Show it to your kids and they'll grow up wanting to be ichthyologists, I bet.

(UPDATE: In response to the subsequent discovery that the same Great White had sustained serious injury and speculation that the injury was a result of Dr. Michael Domeier's catch-and-tag operation. This post could put some of that criticism to rest, concluding:

The full video clearly shows that Junior’s injuries are caused by intraspecies conflict and not a direct result of the capture method. The concern that the tagging method seriously injured this shark is not supported by the evidence at hand.

Dr. Domeier’s team was able to attach a satellite tag to Junior during his original capture. Data from that tag shows that Junior is still swimming.

The direct cause of the mutilation near the tagged animal's jaw appears to have been another shark, then, not infection or other effect of the hauling-out and tagging.)