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Giant Shark Cryptid?

minordrag

Gone But Not Forgotten
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In reading Richard Ellis' "Aquagenesis" I came across this enigmatic passage. It was originally written by David Stead, an Australian ichthyologist:

"In the year 1918 I recorded the sensation that had been caused among the "outside" crayfishmen at Port Stephens [New South Wales], when, for several days, they refused to go to sea to their regular fishing grounds in the vicinity of Broughton Island. The men had been at work on the fishing grounds--which lie in deep water--when an immense shark of almost unbelievable proportions put in an appearance, lifting pot after pot containing many crayfishes, and taking, as the men said, "pots, mooring lines and all." These crayfish pots, it should be mentioned, were about 3 to 6 inches in diameter and frequently contained from two to three dozen good-sized crayfish each weighing several pounds. The men were all unanimous that this shark was something the like of which they had never dreamed of. In company with the local Fisheries Inspector I questioned many of the men very closely and they all agreed as to the gigantic stature of the beast. But the lengths they gave were, on the whole, absurd. I mention them, however, as an indication of the state of mind which this unusual giant had thrown them into. And bear in mind that these were men who were used to the sea and all sorts of weather, and all sorts of sharks as well. One of the crew said the shark was "three hundred feet long at least!" Others said it was as long as the whark on which we stood--about 115 feet! They affirmed that the water "boiled" over a large space when the fish swam past. They were all familiar with whales, which they had often seen passing at sea, but this was a vast shark. They had seen its terrible head, which was "at least as long as the roof of the wharf shed at Nelson's Bay." Impossible, of course! But these were prosaic and rather stolid men, not given to "fish stories" nor even to talking at all about their catches. Further, they knew that the person they were talking to (myself) had heard all the fish stories years before! One of the things that impressed me was that they all agreed as to the ghostly whitish color of the vast fish."


Carcharodon megalodon ("great tooth") lived during the Middle and Late Tertiary--50 million years ago, and was probably 50 feet long.

Are there any, more recent, stories of super sharks?
 
The fact that 2 witnesses, both supposedly familar with sea fishing and many species of sharks, whales etc, gave such wildly different estimates of length as 115ft and 300ft makes the whole story sound fishy (no pun intended).

Even a 115ft shark would probably be the biggest animal ever to have lived considering a blue whale is 90-100ft. A 300ft shark just sounds impossible. On the other hand there have been very variable estimates of how big Megalodon actually was - originally it was 80ft, now it has been downscaled to 50ft. I dont think they have a complete skeleton.

Also I think Megalodon was once considered to be in the same genus as the living Great White (Carcharodon carcharias) which led to speculation that they were perhaps the same species and a few great whites lived to be abnormally old and grew big enoigh to be classified as Megalodon. But I think recently they have reclassified Megalodon into a different genus due to more complete fossil finds.

There is a theory that Basking Sharks (usually about 25-30ft) can occasionally be born with extra vertebrae making them perhaps up to 50ft. This is based on the "Stronsay Beast" carcass which was a typical "pseudo-plesiosaur" decayed basker but had something like 40 more vertebrae than a basker is supposed to have. There is also a photo of an unusually elongated looking recently dead basking shark with a long row of people behind it (which has been ironically dubbed "the Thundershark photograph"). However this one is real (i think it is in the gallery section of Cryptozoology.com).

I found a good Megalodon website recently while looking for stuff about Megachasma (the Megamouth Shark thought by some to be the source of the "giant tadpole" photograph), I will try to find the link again.
 
I think Disney were planning on making a movie ("Meg") about this, but it was cancelled after the disappointing performance of Godzilla. Probably for the best.
 
1. There are going to be atleast 2 movies coming out about Megs.
a) Shark Attack 3
b) Steve Alten's novel "Meg"

2. Those guys could of just said it was over 100 feet long when it was only a 20 foot Great White. You never know. Besides, stories like these get changed over a period of time.
 
Richard Ellis in "Monsters of the Deep" says that taxonomists have now decided that due to tooth shape, megalodon is not related to the Great White, but is related to the mako, who is only very distantly related to the Great White. This is based on the fact that the GW has much larger tooth serrations than megalodon, while mako teeth are more finely serrated, as was meg's.

On the above story, it smacks a bit too much of exaggerated size. An average 14-foot Great White is an absolutely enormous fish, not to mention insanely frighteningly. Just how big do people need sharks and other fish to be in order to be impressed by their size? :rolleyes:
 
gaint shark cryptid?

i thought that the orginal story of "jaws" was about a megadon?,but hollywood "in their infinite wisdom":rolleyes: changed to it to "a great white" sorry i meant to say a megladon. (megadon r they a member of the mogadon family?;) )
 
Im fairly certain, when Peter Benchley wrote Jaws it was about a large (30ft) Great White. Even a 20footer is rare.

100ft shark -I'd be out of the water and on dry land like a shot -esp. if it looked anything close to a great white rather than a whale shark :)
 
Jaws was about a great white but characters speculated on the survival of Megalodon.
I dont think they have a complete skeleton.
I would be very surprised if they did. What with the whole cartilaginous fish thing.
 
I was under the impression that they only had teeth, but they estimated from the size of teeth (bloody massive) that they were dealinf with a big fish thing
 
I'm back, with references! According to Karl Shuker (In Search of Prehistoric Survivors), the meg was originally believed to be about 80ft in length, based on the size of its teeth, but this estimate is now thought to be incorrect, and has been amended to a more conservative 43 feet.

As far as I know, unless anything has been discovered recently that I've missed, (and I don't pay a great deal of attention ^_^) Megalodon is known only by its teeth.

Shuker quotes three different possible sightings, including the one Minor Drag detailed. Another was supposedly spied in 1927 or 28 by a writer of western novels named Zane Grey in the south Pacific. The description of the shark, however, (a large, square head, huge pectoral fins, a green or yellow body speckled with a few white spots, and "considerably" longer than his 40ft boat) sounds to me like a perfectly good description of a whale shark, which can be up to 50ft long, and has a distinctive square head shape, greenish colour and white spots.

Also, Grey's son claimed to have seen one too, in 1933, about 100 miles from his father's sighting, yellowish but flecked with white, a massive head,and not less than 40-50 feet long... he was convinced it wasn't a whale shark.... but, y'know

also, I'm sure I don't need to harp on about how difficult it is to estimate the size of something in the water, or even to get a decent look at it... but wouldn't it be fantastic! Be sure to take shark repellent next time you go swimming ^_~
 
This story seems vaguely familliar...
Well, it seems credible enough, exceprt for the 115 to 300 foot description. Maybe the reporters got it wrong? Water distortion? Illusion of huge size casued by the school of fish fleeing from the beast? And one thing that worried me-Crayfish being a few pounds each!:eek!!!!: The Crayfish I know are only a few ounces, so I assume it is used here to mean lobsters. Correct me if I am wrong.
 
Slytherin said:
I'm back, with references!
Blimey, where did you go for these references, you haven't posted for 6 months! (welcome back)
 
I've been stalking Karl Shuker, of course. It takes longer than you might think!

Thanks for the welcome back, though, it's always nice to be back.
^_^
 
These crayfish pots, it should be mentioned, were about 3 to 6 inches in diameter and frequently contained from two to three dozen good-sized crayfish each weighing several pounds.


maybe they meant the pots weighed several pounds. or it's some freak area covered in nuclear waste that has distorted the genes of the animals in the area to cause them to grow to an incredible size. eh, either ones good enough for me.
 
Giant sharks

I am originally from Cape Town and in the false bay harbour there lives a very large and probably very old shark called the Submarine. He is longer than a fishing trawler and has been sighted by most members of the fishing fleet at one stage or another.

Our greatest shark conservationist used to be a shark hunter until he had a run in with the Submarine - the story goes that the shark took out the back of the boat this chap was in - fortunately just as it entered the harbour, he coasted in and the shark did not follow. This happened before my birth. Some of my family are fishermen and they all speak of this shark with a degree of respect - apparently he has never attacked a human unprovoked - which stands to reason as the seal population in the bay is large enough to sustain him.
 
Wow. That's really interesting. How long are fishing trawlers in Cape Town? Also, what sort of shark is it likely to be; a great white?
 
submarine

This creature is mentioned here and here and seems to be (or have been) a great white in excess of 6 metres
which is about as big as they come.
 
The Submarine was a great white shark - as those two links point out. The last time I heard of her being sighted was in 1988. Who knows, maybe she pushed on to warmer waters.

False Bay also has the largest concentration of great white sharks known in the world but surprisingly very few people have ever been attacked in those waters. It has been suggested that this is due to the large seal population in the area and the very low temperature of the water - shark attacks become more common the further up the east coast, and the further into tropical waters you go.
 
I find the idea of megalodon still roaming the oceans fascinating, image what could be learned from a creature that large that has managed to elude us for all of this time....
 
Crayfish-Lobster thingie

Hey. Um, about the crayfish size problem. I'm from Australia (mate) and I think the crayfish seem so big to you all because we call Lobsters Crayfish and Crayfish, Yabbies. :D I hope that clears it up...
Loz
 
Bosbaba said:
shark attacks become more common the further up the east coast, and the further into tropical waters you go.
Isn’t that because more people swim in warm water than cold water?
 
Stiltonfairy said:
I find the idea of megalodon still roaming the oceans fascinating, image what could be learned from a creature that large that has managed to elude us for all of this time....

What depth would they be capable of living at? When you consider the size of the pacific if these things stayed fairly central and deep we would quite reasonably not know about them. Amazing if one was ever photographed/filmed.
 
Why is a 300 foot long shark 'impossible'?
 
i think the main stem of speculation arises from the amount of food a creature of that size would need to consume.. but who knows, nothing is impossible
 
another note..
after a quick look around on the net, one website suggested that most sharks eat 2% of their own body weight per day, IMO a 300 footer would surely then cause somekind of severe unblance in the oceans food chain
 
A 'dinosaur sized' shark eats a swimmer in South Africa. Experts say, it was probably a great white, but what do they know? :shock:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/13/cape-town-giant-shark-attack

Tourist killed by 'dinosaur-sized' shark off South African beach

Zimbabwean holidaymaker eaten by shark described by onlookers as 'longer than a minibus'

guardian.co.uk, David Smith in Johannesburg. 13 January 2010

Witnesses today described their horror at seeing a tourist being eaten by a "gigantic" shark in South Africa's most popular holiday destination.

Lloyd Skinner was pulled under the surf and dragged out to sea by the shark, believed to be a great white, off Fish Hoek beach in Cape Town. His diving goggles and a dark patch of blood were all that remained in the water.

"Holy shit. We just saw a gigantic shark eat what looked like a person in front of our house," witness Gregg Coppen posted on Twitter. "That shark was huge. Like dinosaur huge."

The shocking attack yesterday afternoon came after an increase in recent shark sightings and led to calls for an electronic warning system to alert swimmers.

Skinner, 37, a Zimbabwean who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was standing chest-deep 100 metres from the shore and adjusting his goggles when the shark struck. It was seen approaching him twice before he disappeared in a flurry of thrashing. Cape Town's disaster management services had issued a warning hours earlier that sharks had been spotted in the water, but the shark flag was not flying.

Witnesses described the terrifying scene. The shark was "longer than a minibus", Coppen told the Cape Times newspaper.

He said: "It was this giant shadow heading to something colourful. Then it sort of came out the water and took this colourful lump and went off with it. You could see its whole jaw wrap around the thing which turned out to be a person."

British visitor Phyllis McCartain told the same paper: "We saw the shark come back twice. It had the man's body in its mouth, and his arm was in the air. Then the sea was full of blood."

Kyle Johnston said: "We were swimming only about 15 metres away from the guy. We were at about chest depth and he was a little deeper. We looked at the walkway and saw people waving towels at us, then we looked further out to sea and saw what looked like blood, and a man's leg come up."

His friend Dane Leo added: "I was floating and I thought the people waving at us were joking, but then I looked back and saw a fin and blood."

Kathy Geldenhuys was sitting on a nearby bench. She recalled: "My husband had just pointed out how far the man was swimming from the other people. He asked what would happen if he was attacked by a shark, because he was so far away. The words were hardly cold when the shark attacked that man. The shark attacked twice; it turned and attacked the man again; I just saw the blood on the water."

Geldenhuys added: "Only when it was attacking did I see the fin, but then I could see the whole body under the water. It was a very big shark ... It came from below and grabbed the man. Part of his body was gone."

Skinner was reportedly on holiday in Cape Town for the month to attend the wedding of his partner's daughter. His partner was at the beach with him.

Four rescue boats and a helicopter searched in vain for Skinner yesterday and resumed the hunt today. Ian Klopper, a spokesman for the National Sea Rescue Institute, said: "You can rule out any chance of finding him alive. Whether we find body parts, it's very unlikely. We think the shark took everything."

Shark scientist Alison Kock said it was probably a great white, the most commonly spotted shark in the area. "More than 70% of recorded great white attacks on humans result in just the shark biting and then leaving," she said. "There is that 30% where the shark behaves like it did in this case, where it came back and killed the person." Kock added there had been an increase in shark sightings in recent weeks.

After a deadly attack at Fish Hoek six years ago, shark spotters were posted on mountain slopes to look for sharks close to popular swimming spots. The spotters use radios to order that a loud alarm be sounded so people can move to safety.

This attack has reportedly prompted discussions about introducing an electronic detection system. Klopper said he was unaware of details, but past speculation has included sonar buoys able to identify sharks and transmit a warning signal. Critics say this would be impractical.

Beaches along Cape Town's False Bay coastline were closed today, but several bathers ignored the warning flags and ventured into shallow waters. Lifeguards asked them to get out and the shark alarm sounded several times.
 
I've just read that story on the Guardian site.

I think one thing to take in account is that the general and non-zoologically trained public have little first-hand interaction with sharks and have, I believe, a tendency to forget just how big they are. They may well acknowledge read figures of length, in feet or metres, but this is not the same a conceptualising their size in terms of living flesh and, crucially, in relation to other things around them. I think the public tend to exaggerate that sharks they see are abnormally big when, in fact, what they are seeing are sizeable, but not irregular specimens.

Reasons:
First, sharks in an aquarium may be big, but they're not great whites. If you're luck enough to have seen a whale shark, you may be thinking along the right-lines, but in terms of appearance, it's easy to categorise the harmless and graceful giant as more whale and less shark.

Second, sharks on TV: they're not next to things one is intimately familiar with. If there is a human in the shot, the camera work is (understandably) erratic and there will seldom be a prolonged shot of shark and man in the same 'pose', side-by-side, so to speak. The 'textbook' footage shows a big head approaching fast and then a shudder and a blur. Exciting? Yes. Helpful in terms of gauging size? No. Not at all.

Third, shark sizes are typically given in length, especially in the non-scientific media. This completely ignores huge girths, circumferences and jaw-sizes all of which contribute to mass and mental impression of size. Even if such measurements/speculations are cited, the headline will read: "Xft shark". It is, therefore, easy for an untrained eye to conclude that a shark was "dinosaur-sized", without realising that this is true of many sharks. They're often bloody big anyway in terms of humans, boats and other things in their environment. If, and I'm speculating myself now, you see a little head with arms flailing in the distance, and this familiar shape is almost totally enveloped by huge, fat beast, all but the expert would be inclined to say that they'd seen an atypical beast. I may well make the same mistake had I sand between my toes, but in the cold light of day, I'd be more sceptical.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Skinner, 37, a Zimbabwean who lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, was standing chest-deep 100 metres from the shore and adjusting his goggles when the shark struck. It was seen approaching him twice before he disappeared in a flurry of thrashing.

My comments notwithstanding, that's pretty unnerving!

One wonders what he was thinking/doing after the two preliminary 'approaches'.
 
That is exactly the reason I rarely dare go deeper than waist deep.

On a recent holiday to Corfu we went to two beaches where you could actually walk out a good 100 metres and still only be in waist/chest deep water.

All very nice but I can only last a few minutes before shark panic sets in and I have to flee for shore. Sure the Med may not be a Great White Shark's natural habitat but they ARE in the same water as me at that exact moment and should they so wish could happen to take a wrong turn somewhere!

Very good point about the man on the street not realising the scale. I've wanted to see that Damien Hirst shark in formaldehyde for a while just to get some kind of scale - although that wasn't a GWS I don't think - but doubt I will be visiting MoMA before the end of the year.
 
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