The Paris Collection

The Great Southern Ocean off South Australia is home to great biodiversity including the Isurus oxyrinchus, Shortfin Mako shark. This beautiful 3m female gapes to make herself look bigger and more menacing. Deep wounds are visible on her top lip from a recent seal encounter. Her open maw shows a multitude of parasitic copepods (Anthosoma crissum) burrowed into the soft tissue in the roof of her mouth. Her charisma and love for the camera (literally, as she mouth it a number of times) prompted me to affectionately refer to her as 'Paris' after the American socialite 'Paris Hilton'.

Sam Cahir is an international award winning underwater photographer specialising in sharks. Based in Melbourne, Australia, Sam’s work has featured on television, newspapers, magazines, calendars, books, scientific papers and numerous websites worldwide. He is a valued part of the Fox Shark Research Foundation team (FSRF) located in South Australia, whose mission is to inspire the appreciation and understanding of great white sharks through research and education.