It seems sharks have had enough of the internet shredding their good name (with posts like this and this) – they're on a mission to shut it all down. Google officials have revealed that thousands upon thousands of miles of their undersea internet cables have to be reinforced with something similar to kevlar (the high-strength material used in bullet-proof vests) to protect them from the jaws of the oceans' top predators.

Without the undersea fibre-optic architecture (essentially a vast network of glass tubes) to connect the continents, the internet as we know it couldn't exist. Which is why sharks' well-established penchant for cable chomping (a phenomenon noted by the New York Times all the way back in 1987) is a bit of a problem. 

With Google's cable network growing ever-larger (it recently joined forces with other companies to build a new cable system to connect the US to Japan), it's pretty important to ensure this precious infrastructure is well protected from attacks like this:

 

So, does this taste for fibre-optic cables come down to the sharks' inquisitive 'test first, eat later' MO (the shark in the video seems to be merely checking out a strange contraption)? If anyone out there has a more likely explanation, let us know in the comments below.

For a cool visual of the internet's undersea world, check out this infographic.

h/t: Network World