What kind of shark was Jaws?

In Stephen Spielberg's iconic film "Jaws," the main villain of the film is a fictionalized great white shark. The sharks seen in the film are mostly man-made animatronic sharks that have the same physical features and coloring of a great white.

Three different prop sharks were used while filming "Jaws," and the prop shark came to be known as Bruce among the crew. The sharks, which were built during the 1970s, were very difficult to work with, forcing Spielberg to abandon the idea of fully including the shark in several shots. Instead, the presence of a shark would be alluded to rather than shown.