Tin Tin in the Real World

Inspired by Belgian cartoon hero Tin Tin's adventures in Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge, Jacques Cousteau's grandson, Fabien, has created a robotic shark-shaped submarine for studying the ancient predators.

In the Tin Tin cartoon, the shark submarine was a rigid device designed by Professor Cuthbert Calculus, of course. The real-life engineer for Cousteau's flexible, swimming shark was Eddie Paul. This was his third mechanical shark for the illustrious Cousteau clan. No word on whether any real-life fox terriers were on hand to serve as trusty sidekick.

The point of his adventures in the shark-sub, insists Cousteau, is to dispel the myth of Great Whites as demonic and monstrous. Footage taken from the sub will be used in an upcoming documentary on the subject.

Many species of pelagic shark have experienced dramatic declines in recent decades. To cite one example: By comparing today's catches with catch records from the 1950s, researchers estimate that once-abundant white tip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have declined by 99 percent and are now "ecologically extinct" in the region.