A Florida shark biologist has turned her body into an underwater encyclopedia — covering herself with a record-breaking 106 shark tattoos after a childhood fear of the ocean’s most feared predator became a lifelong obsession.
Emily Morrison recently earned a Guinness World Record for the most shark tattoos on a woman’s body, with ink depicting 71 different shark species, fossilized teeth and even a fresh shark tooth stretching from her feet to her neck.
The woman known as “Shark Lady Emily” said the obsession began after watching the 1975 blockbuster “Jaws” when she was 8 years old — convinced she’d one day become shark bait.
“I remember telling my dad, ‘Sharks will eat me,’” Emily recalled to Guinness World Records.
Instead of comforting her, her father told her “that’s ridiculous” and marched the frightened child to the library and challenged her to find a real reason to fear sharks.
The more Morrison learned about the ocean’s most misunderstood predators, the more fascinated she became.
“I have always had a fascination with them — and the lack of information out there,” Emily told Guinness World Records. “I am obsessed with the adaptations and the evolutionary path that sharks and cartilaginous fish have endured throughout the 450 million years of existence.
“Why are living sharks the way that they are — and how they impact their specified environments — is fascinating to me. It’s never-ending information.”
Fast-forward decades, now a dive-tour operator in Venice, FL, she leads fossil shark-tooth dives off the Gulf Coast and swims alongside some of the ocean’s most feared predators.
Her first tattoo — a great white shark on her lower back — was a tribute to the movie that sparked her lifelong fascination.
Like-minded shark fans can catch her showing off her jaw-dropping ink on Discovery Channel’s “My Strange Shark Addiction” during this year’s Shark Week, which kicks off on July 26.
“I have fed tiger sharks and great hammerheads in the Bahamas, cage-dived with great whites in Australia, swam with whale sharks off the coast of Mexico, and so much more,” she said.
Despite countless encounters with sharks, Morrison said she’s never had a dangerous run-in.
She isn’t done yet, either. She’s determined to tattoo all 58 shark families on her body and has just seven left to complete the ultimate shark-themed canvas.
