Greenland shark is about 1.07× longer by these reference values.
These animals are effectively close in maximum-length terms, so measurement uncertainty can matter more than the apparent difference. Great white shark's weight reference is about 2.2× heavier.
ON THE SAME SCALE
Human. Bus. Whale.
Pick your reference.
Length bars use upper comparison values and do not show body depth, tail proportion or typical adult size. A long thresher tail, for example, does not equal whale-shark body mass.
THE NUMBERS
Side by side.
WHAT SETS THEM APART
More than a size contest.
Length and weight
Greenland shark is represented by confirmed to about 6.4 m / 21 ft; Great white shark by about 6 m / 20 ft. Age and upper mass involve uncertainty; length is better documented. Maximum length and mass are exceptional upper-end figures.
Habitat and diet
Greenland shark: Cold North Atlantic and Arctic waters; fish, carrion and marine mammals. Great white shark: Temperate seas worldwide; fish, rays and marine mammals.
Bite evidence
Greenland shark: TuffShark found no defensible species-level bite-force estimate to display. Great white shark: A 3-D finite-element model predicted the bite of a very large individual; it was not measured on a living shark.
Records are not averages
Both species are living, but record-sized individuals are rare. These upper references should not be read as normal adult size.
TRACE THE CLAIMS