Great white shark all shark species, the great white shark is responsible for by far the largest number of recorded shark bite incidents on humans, with 272 documented unprovoked bite incidents on humans as of 2012. More than any documented bite incident, Peter Benchley's best-selling novel "Jaws" and the subsequent 1975 film adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg provided the great white shark with the image of being a "man eater" in the public mind. While great white sharks have killed humans in at least 74 documented unprovoked bite incidents, they typically do not target them: for example, in the Mediterranean Sea there have
Jaws (novel) couldn't possibly write "Jaws" today ... not in good conscience anyway. Back then, it was generally accepted that great whites were anthropophagus (they ate people) by choice. Now we know that almost every attack on a human is an accident: The shark mistakes the human for its normal prey." Upon his death in 2006, Benchley's widow Wendy declared the author "kept telling people the book was fiction", and comparing "Jaws" to "The Godfather", "he took no more responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo took responsibility for the Mafia." Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, film producers at