Warning! Contains spoilers for Netflix’s Under Paris.

Since Netflix’s Under Paris maintains an air of mystery surrounding which species of shark Lillith belongs to, viewers must be curious about the characteristics, abilities, and origins of the vicious underwater creature. Apart from featuring a violent showdown between sharks and humans throughout its runtime, Under Paris drops several subtle clues that reveal what kind of shark Lillith can be. In other moments, Under Paris also adds a layer of fantasy to the narrative, portraying abilities that a shark like Lillith may not possess biologically.

One of these early hints shows up in Under Paris‘ opening arc, explaining why the main shark, Lillith, has its appearance. As the movie progresses, its main character, Sophia, learns more and more about what it can do and where it possibly comes from to be able to defeat it before it is too late for humans. Although, as Under Paris‘ ending suggests, Sophia and her team fail to overpower the shark, the movie drops enough details to highlight which real-world shark species Lillith closely represents.

Lilith Was Thought To Be A Mako Shark In Under Paris

Sophia Draws Her Initial Conclusion Based On Lillith’s Appearance

Early on in Netflix’s Under Paris, the main character, Sophia, says Lillith is a mako shark. Also known as the blue pointer or bonito shark, the Mako shark is usually found in tropical seas. As shown in the movie, mako sharks also travel long distances to hunt and capture prey and are even notably known for covering 2000 km in one stretch to find both mates and prey. In Under Paris, Lillith somehow sustains itself in the freshwater of Paris’ Seine River, which, in real life, would be unlikely since mako sharks are among the many oceanic species that require saltwater to maintain their physiological processes.

Sophia Claimed Lilith Was A New Species Of Shark In Under Paris

Lillith Has Many Advantageous Mutations In Under Paris

Although some shark species, like the Bull shark, Requiem shark, and Ganges shark, can survive in freshwater, mako sharks are adapted to the high salinity of marine environments. Owing to this, Under Paris‘ portrayal of a mako shark surviving and attacking humans in fresh river water is inaccurate. However, the movie offers an explanation for this by revealing that Lillith has mutations that allow it to withstand and thrive in freshwater conditions. Apart from helping Lillith sustain itself in the Seine River, its mutations give it another major advantage over the city’s human population.

Sophia learns that Lillith does need to mate to reproduce and can do it asexually through a process called parthenogenesis. Even in the real world, many sharks, such as the Bonnethead Shark, Leopard Shark, and Zebra Shark, are capable of reproducing asexually. Although there have been no real-life documented cases of parthenogenesis in mako sharks, Under Paris effectively uses the scientific concept to highlight how Lillith single-handedly raises her own underwater army and becomes a significant threat to the human population.

How Under Paris’ Lilith Compares To The Sharks In Jaws & The Meg

Lillith Is Not As Massive As Others But Possesses Terrifying Mutations

The shark in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is 25 ft / 7.62 m, which makes it 5 feet bigger than the one pictured in Peter Benchley’s source novel. Its weight, calculated through real-life sharks’ weights scaled to lengths, is around 4.9 tons, making it over 2 tons heavier than the one in Peter Benchley’s book. While the shark in Jaws 2 is the same size, the one in Jaws 3D is even bigger, weighing 13.5 tons. Starring Jason Statham, one of the most popular shark movies of modern times, The Meg, takes things up a notch by portraying a colossal 75-foot version of the extinct megalodon shark.

Instead of treading the same path as other films like Jaws, The Shallows, and The Meg and featuring great white or megalodon sharks as its antagonists, Netflix’s Under Paris settles for a shortfin mako. As seen in the film, mako sharks are relatively smaller than most sharks portrayed in movies, but their size can still go up to 4 m (13 ft) in length and 570 kg (1,260 lb) in weight. Despite not being anywhere as massive as the megalodon, Under Paris‘ Lillith seems like a mighty and enormous apex predator against humans whose specific mutations allow her to start a global shark invasion.