As popular culture often depicts, a glimpse of a dorsal fin acts as a warning that a shark is nearby. In the iconic 1975 film "Jaws," a killer shark causes chaos in a beach community off Cape Cod. While the shark itself isn't revealed until the end, anticipation builds with the help of just the dorsal fin.
But reality is much different, as illuminated by a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE showing that sharks are more inconspicuous than previously thought. In fact, it's likely that at least in California, swimmers and surfers are spending more time in close proximity with sharks than they're aware of.
