As Shark Week takes over social media feeds with videos and stories on these underwater creatures, even if you don’t have the Discovery Channel, you can get your shark fix right here in Washington, D.C.Washington Examiner is taking you to the top places to celebrate Shark Week with interactive experiences and local businesses getting in on the fun!First stop is at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where a 52-foot megalodon is hanging. Visitors are taken back in time to imagine how this now extinct creature — three times the size of a modern-day great white shark — used to swim right over the National Mall.
“When this animal was alive, this area was submerged,” Kirk Johnson, the museum’s Sant director, told Washington Examiner. “So that model is actually hanging where the original animal could have been swimming, quite literally.”While the megalodon model is suspended above the Ocean Terrace Cafe, you can get an even closer look at the jaws of this 50-ton animal, recreated with teeth found nearby in the Potomac River.“If you’re a shark, your main job is to swim around the ocean and eat things,” Johnson said. “When you bite things, occasionally you lose a tooth. No problem, you get rows and rows of teeth. So you’re basically a tooth‑making machine, and you’re a biting machine, and over time you lose teeth, and those teeth sink to the bottom of the sea. So it is quite literally raining sharks’ teeth in the ocean all the time, everywhere in the world.”Johnson says these exhibits are a star attraction for Shark Week at the museum. It’s a chance for visitors to see the 6-inch teeth up close, then step back and appreciate just how outsize this prehistoric shark really was.“Jaws was big and scary,” Kirkland said. “Jaws is like a little baby puppy compared to this thing. This is the ultimate shark right here. So come to the Natural History Museum and see the ultimate shark.”10th St. & Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20560
