A shark suit is a body-cover suit made of chainmail

Chainmail

Mail is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh.-History:Mail was a highly successful type of armour and was used by nearly every metalworking culture....

 worn sometimes by scuba divers

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

 to protect against shark

Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

 bite. While the wearer will feel the full pressure of the bite, the suit prevents any concentration of force from the shark's teeth and effectively prevents any true damage to the wearer's tissue other than bruising. A standard shark suit cannot be guaranteed against a great white shark

Great white shark

The great white shark, scientific name Carcharodon carcharias, also known as the great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. It is known for its size, with the largest individuals known to have approached...

 bite; which is so powerful that an especially heavy suit must be worn.

Development

In the late 1970s, marine biologist Jeremiah Sullivan developed a flexible suit of armor for divers to wear while working around sharks. Often referred to as: Metal Mesh Shark Suit, Chain Mail Anti-Shark Suit, Steel Mesh Shark Suit, etc. Its actual name is the NEPTUNIC Sharksuit. The technology Sullivan developed and continues to advance is now known and used throughout the world.

Construction

A typical shark suit is constructed of extremely tightly-woven steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 or titanium

Titanium

Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....

 rings covering a standard neoprene

Neoprene

Neoprene or polychloroprene is a family of synthetic rubbers that are produced by polymerization of chloroprene. Neoprene in general has good chemical stability, and maintains flexibility over a wide temperature range...

 wetsuit

Wetsuit

A wetsuit is a garment, usually made of foamed neoprene, which is worn by surfers, divers, windsurfers, canoeists, and others engaged in water sports, providing thermal insulation, abrasion resistance and buoyancy. The insulation properties depend on bubbles of gas enclosed within the material,...

. A shark bite will not be able to penetrate the rings, because the jaws will be shutting too slowly and the shark's muscles will not be able to cut the metal. Similar to chainmail, divers wearing sharksuits can suffer from broken bones from the sheer force of a shark chomping down on a limb.