Something Ate This Shark... But What? (Something Enormous Ate a Very, Very Big Great White Shark)

Smithsonian Channel on You Tube ^ | May 30, 2014 | Smithsonian Channel

[OneVike]

A group of marine biologists off the coast of Australia tagged a healthy great white shark. Then, a few months later, the tag washed ashore. When researchers analyzed data from the tag, they were confronted with a mystery that was deeply weird, and slightly terrifying.

In this video, we learn what the researchers found on the tag. A few weeks after tagging, the shark appears to have been abruptly dragged down into a deep ocean trench, then eaten. The tag remained in the digestive system of the animal that ate it for several days. Whatever animal it was seemed to be bobbing to the ocean surface once in a while, though it never plunged as deeply as it had after it ate the shark.

What kind of deep-dwelling alpha predator did this? Obviously it's very possible that the shark's tag was eaten, but that still leaves us wondering what could bite a hunk off a shark, then zoom down to an incredible depth and back up again? This video is a reminder of how little we actually know about shark behavior and deep sea life.

[Bulwyf]

Bible does make reference to some pretty massive, frightening sea creatures. Men’s weapons couldn’t hurt it, at least at the time. I’m sure a bunker buster would work now heh.

[Chode]

yup, i saw a coupe last night, funny as hell

[Bulwyf]

There are a lot of accounts of some kind of massive creature that could sink ships back in the days of sail. Some seamen might of been drunk, but there were so many stories, who knows for sure what was true and what wasn’t. But some stuff they described, if they were accurate, could easily bend metal like that.

[Little Pig]

I believe it. There are reports of octopuses boarding crab boats and making off with the catch.

[Bulwyf]

Was waiting for someone to mention the only real sea monster we know of for sure heh.

[Bulwyf]

That doesn’t make sense for the depths that thing was recorded at.

[Lazamataz]

The Offspring did a song, “Pretty Fly For A White Shark”

Bite me right in half, baby
Uh-huh, uh-huh
Bite me right in half, baby
Uh-huh, uh-huh
Bite me right in half, baby
Uh-huh, uh-huh
And all the fishes say, “I’m pretty fly for a white shark”

Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, cinco, seis

You know it’s kind of hard
Just to swim along today
Our shark isn’t cool
But he fakes it anyway
He may not have feeding frenzies
And he electrosensing may be lame
But everything he lacks
Well, he makes up cuz he’s tame

So don’t debate a shark, he hates
You know, he really doesn’t bite anyway
He’s gonna eat the sea, always for free
Bite you today, Bite you today,
So if you don’t chomp, just over-comp
At least you’ll know, you can always kill a whole lake
The world needs murderous fish, hey hey
Do that brand new thing

[Desron13]

Yog, sothoth!

A fellow H. P. Lovecraft Fan I see. My father read me that story when I was nine. I didn't sleep for days.

[blueunicorn6]

It was Steve. Every once in awhile he gets this craving for Great White Sushi.

[Georgia Girl 2]

My vote would be Orcas.

[Finny]

Really! I didn't know that! OWCH!!!

I like 'em best on my dinner plate, and at that, I only like the little ones, tentacles and all. The big ones are called by many "poor man's abalone," but as abalone was a breakfast, lunch, and dinner staple in my family throughout my childhood, I can vouch that the "poor man's abalone" comparison is poverty indeed. Little squid are muy delicious ... big squid, meh. The oughta just let 'em go, IMO!!

[Finny]

YOWWWWW!!!

[Finny]

Killer Whale.

The thing that ate this shark (or the chunk of the shark that had the recording device) grabbed it and dove fast and steep to a depth of nearly 590 meters, or about 1,900 feet.

Killer Whales only dive to about 30 meters, apparently, which makes sense. They don't NEED to go real deep; most of their food is going to be at shallower depths, and that's what their bodies are set up to withstand.

A squid, on the other hand, is virtually oblivious to the pressure of the ocean depths. And Great Whites can also dive very deep. The only thing that makes me think it wasn't a bigger Great White that ate it, is that sharks don't grab food and dive to eat it. They chow down in place.

My question -- are squids warm-blooded enough to be about 73 degrees at that depth? Because that's what the data indicated, that this critter, whatever ate the shark, had that kind of body temp.

Very doubtful that it was a Killer Whale, though. They don't dive that deep.

[Finny]

My vote would be Orcas.

Nope. The thing dived to 590 meters immediately after grabbing the shark. Orcas only go down about 30 meters.

[Finny]

In case you gents have missed this book, you might be interested in reading John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday.” The main character, Doc, is a marine biologist, modeled on Steinbeck’s very close friend, Doc Ricketts. His grail was to write a paper on octopi. Very intelligent creatures, very moody, very emotional animals. Kind of like Doc himself!

[Finny]

Most likely, it was eaten either by a killer whale, as some suggested, or a much larger shark.

Not a killer whale. They're thought to dive to at most to about 30 meters (no need to go deeper, no food down there), whereas the critter that ate this dove WAY deeper, to 590 meters. From what I can glean online, Great Whites can handle the pressure of that depth. A killer whale probably couldn't. That's awful damned deep.

[21twelve]

That was in 1997 and it was called the “Bloop.”

**************

Thanks - but in listening to the things that come up on the internet it wasn’t that. There is one called the “upsweep” that has a bit of that “electronic” sound to it, but that isn’t what I recall either (I don’t think!?).

Regardless - lots of unexplained things down there. Pretty cool. (Until they eat you!)

[Salamander]

My school teacher aunt brought me all of Lovecraft’s books at about that age, too.

I didn’t sleep for days, either...because I was too busy reading them late at night when I should have been sleeping.

;D

[Finny]

Killer whale. No other possibility really, the megaladon is extinct.

1. "No other possibility" ... actually, there's no possibility that it was a killer whale because the thing that ate this dove almost twenty times deeper than killer whales do. The pressure of that depth would probably kill the Orca pronto.

2. "... the magaladon is extinct" -- according to the same set who thought the Coelacanth was had been extinct for the past 65 million years. OOPS!!! They were wrong. And they may well be wrong about other critters.

My dad, who was a total non-believer when it came to flying saucers and ghosts, made his living fishing the high seas, many hundreds of miles from shore, for more than three decades. He often told me that there are MANY strange and wondrous creatures in the ocean not yet known to science.

[varmintman]

Interesting, thanks.