Friday, 31 May 2019

Shark Bitten in Half

An Australian fisherman has found the remains of a shark that has clearly been bifurcated. Trapman "Jason" Bermagui reeled in the severed head and front fins of a dead mako shark. That fragment in itself weighed over fifteen stone and the entire shark would have been about twelve feet long. This comes after several other similar events including a great white shark being found in 2017, also in Australia, with its head missing. These sharks appear to have been attacked and bitten. Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8743198/shark-found-head-bitten-off-australia/. The question is: what lies beneath the waves that is big enough to bite one of the largest known ocean predators in half? The frightening answer might be: something unknown that is bigger. Could it be a meg? Last year a film came out called The Meg which developed an idea that inspired Peter Benchley when he wrote his novel Jaws which was adapted into a famous film by Steven Spielberg. The story of Jaws is about three men who go out to sea in a fishing boat to catch a shark that has been terrorizing a seaside holiday resort. The shark is thought to be a great white, the largest known living predatory shark, but it turns out to be far bigger than they expect. The classic line from the movie script is: "We're going to need a bigger boat." Benchley did wonder if it was possible that the meg could still be alive and left that question obvious but unspoken in his book. The megalodon is a shark thought to have become extinct about three million years ago. It was enormous, up to sixty feet long, and its teeth were five inches long. It used to eat turtles, whales, large fish and other sharks. Humans were not around in our present form back then, but if we had been it would definitely not have been safe to go back into the water. There is no direct evidence of a living megalodon in today's world, but clearly something with a very big mouth and sharp teeth is biting apex marine predators in half. This article claims that it could actually be a giant turtle, see: https://www.einpresswire.com/article/480576739/is-the-shark-eating-super-predator-a-species-of-giant-turtle. Scientists know less about the deep ocean than they know about some of the planets in our solar system. Reports of strange creatures encountered at sea are constantly appearing. New species are often being discovered, such as the megamouth shark in 1976, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megamouth_shark. There are other former cryptids found to be real like the giant squid. Also extinct creatures found not to have died out like the coelacanth. Hopefully the Centre for Fortean Zoology crew can pull their waders on and solve this mystery. In the meantime, I wouldn't let this put you off bathing in the sea if you enjoy seaside holidays. Just take the usual precautions; don't swim too far from the beach, don't swim in the sea while drunk, don't swim if you have an open wound etc.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

"But Greg Doble wrote that the distinctive pattern around the Mako's wound made it appear to have come from a 20ft great white - and probably more than one.

'You can see the smaller or conveyor teeth outside major bite marks,' he wrote. "

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/fisherman-catches-gigantic-sharks-head-off-of-australia-after-the-killer-is-eaten-by-an-even-bigger-predator/ar-BBVocRq

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Thanks for the info, Anon. That's a possibility. We'll see if more information comes out.