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Mystery Monster Eats Shark!

rynner2

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Godzilla? 9-foot great white shark EATEN by huge mystery sea monster, say scientists
Jun 07, 2014 14:56 By Mikey Smith

A nine-foot-long great white shark was eaten by a huge mystery sea monster, according to scientists in Australia.

As the saying goes, there's always a bigger fish - but scientists never expected an apex predator like a great white to have any serious enemies.
Researchers tagged the shark so they could track it as part of a study, but it washed up on a nearby beach two months later.

When they checked the information stored on the recovered tracking device, it showed the shark had suddenly plunged 1,900 feet deep into the ocean.
Shortly after, the tag registered a rapid temperature rise - to about the conditions you'd find inside a digestive system
. :shock:

The tag stayed at that depth, and at that temperature for many days, occasionally moving nearer the surface only to descend again, before washing up on the shore.

The only theory scientists have come up with so far - beyond it being Godzilla or the Kraken - is that the shark was eaten by an evan bigger, 'colossal, cannibal great white shark.'
They estimate the kind of shark that could defeat a nine-footer would have to be 16-feet-long and weigh more than two tonnes.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news ... rk-3658246
 
Giant squid. They eat sperm whales, so a great white'd be a little snack.
 
PeniG said:
Giant squid. They eat sperm whales, so a great white'd be a little snack.
Do we know giant squid eat whales? I think it's the other way round - the marks found on Sperm whales are the result of the squid fighting back as the whales try to eat them!

As for squid that eat sharks, even giant squid aren't all that big - most of their length is in the tentacles. According to Wiki "the length of the squid excluding its tentacles is about 5 m (16 ft)", only about the size of a large shark.

Wiki again: "Recent studies have shown giant squid feed on deep-sea fish and other squid species. ... They are believed to be solitary hunters, as only individual giant squid have been caught in fishing nets."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid#Feeding
 
Yes...I think it's more likely to be a rare beast - a really BIG shark.
Can't be a whale, as it would have surfaced a lot sooner.

It's probably a mutant great white.
 
PeniG said:
Giant squid. They eat sperm whales, so a great white'd be a little snack.

Sorry but no chance, giant squid have never been known to eat sperm whales, the size difference is so vastly in the whales favour as to make this impossible.
 
It's unclear from the wording of that story if it was the carcass of the shark that washed up, just the part of the carcass that had the tag attached or just the tag.

Much that I'd love this story to involve tentacles, might it not just have been that something took a bite out of the shark and that bite had the tag in it?
 
OneWingedBird said:
It's unclear from the wording of that story if it was the carcass of the shark that washed up, just the part of the carcass that had the tag attached or just the tag.

I got the impression from the tag's movements (haha) that it was swallowed and then only rose to the surface once it had been shat out the other end (minus the shark it was attached to).
 
If you watch the video it makes clear it was only the tag that was found. It also says that the tag moved between the deep and the surface several times whilst still ingested.
 
A big saltwater crocodile could kill a great white as could a killer whale or sperm whale but all these would hacve surfaced to breath. Probobly a bigger shark.
 
If they only found the tag, couldn't it just have been the tag that was swallowed rather than the whole shark?
 
OneWingedBird said:
If they only found the tag, couldn't it just have been the tag that was swallowed rather than the whole shark?

Good point!

I have yet to see any report on this incident that specifies where the tag would have been located on the shark and what type of tag it was.

Some tagging devices lie close to the body, and some dangle enough to conceivably be bitten off without having to kill (much less swallow) the entire tag-ee.
 
EnolaGaia said:
OneWingedBird said:
If they only found the tag, couldn't it just have been the tag that was swallowed rather than the whole shark?
Good point!

I have yet to see any report on this incident that specifies where the tag would have been located on the shark and what type of tag it was.

Some tagging devices lie close to the body, and some dangle enough to conceivably be bitten off without having to kill (much less swallow) the entire tag-ee.
But the people who did the tagging would have known these details, and they are the ones who are baffled by what went on. Presumably they rejected the simple explanations because of this.
 
rynner2 said:
... But the people who did the tagging would have known these details, and they are the ones who are baffled by what went on. Presumably they rejected the simple explanations because of this.

Except that they (Australian shark researchers) ended up settling on a relatively simple explanation ...

This story apparently derives from an Australian documentary (_The Search for the Ocean's Super Predator_), which has since been recycled as a Smithsonian Channel program (_Hunt for the Super Predator_).

The recent news stories never mention that in the documentary it's concluded the tagged shark fell victim to one or more other sharks ...

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mystery-solve ... 1587429691
 
EnolaGaia said:
This story apparently derives from an Australian documentary (_The Search for the Ocean's Super Predator_), which has since been recycled as a Smithsonian Channel program (_Hunt for the Super Predator_).

The recent news stories never mention that in the documentary it's concluded the tagged shark fell victim to one or more other sharks ...
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mystery-solve ... 1587429691
Doh! We've been duped by partial reporting! :evil:

When a story misses out some of the facts, it will seem like a mystery.

So now the question is, were the facts missed deliberately (to manufacture a mystery), or did one report (perhaps copied by several others) accidentally miss them.

The truth it seems, is simpler: the research was still ongoing when the first story got out.

"It was only after further study of the bigger migrating great whites that came into the area where the 9-footer was killed when they finally could guess the identity of the mysterious killer."
http://sploid.gizmodo.com/mystery-solve ... 1587429691

So it was a mystery to start with, but further work found the explanation.

That's it, then. Move along now, nothing to see here! 8)
 
An Orca would take a 9 foot great white easily
 
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There was a programme about this story on tv last night. They went to the location which is above & around a massive underwater trench larger than the Grand Canyon & attractive to large predators because of nutrients rising from the depths making it attractive to life from small to large.

Squid were ruled out due to small throat size - it’s physically impossible for a squid to swallow the tag. Orca as top predator were a possibility but decided to be unlikely because of depth readings from the tag.

They sent underwater cameras down & filmed a huge Great White male, around 5 metres length & 2 tons weight. This or similar large shark was thought to be the most likely culprit.
 
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