The Great White Sharks, kings of the seas. They are fearless hunters. And they are big: a mature individual can grow up to 6.4 m (21 ft) in length (there are even reports of great white sharks measuring over 8 m (26 ft), and 3,324 kg (7,328 lb) in weight). According to Wikipedia, “The great white shark has no natural predators other than the Orca.” But this is not always true. Sometimes, great whites attacks and even hunt each other.
Even though the great whites are known to generally avoid conflicts with each other, the phenomenon of cannibalism is not alien to this species. This rare phenomenon, has been caught on camera recently: London-born diver Adam Malski (33) filmed a fight between two great white sharks 50 kilometers off the coast of South Australia’s Neptune Islands.
The larger shark (attacker), known locally as Gilbert was a 4.8 meter (15.74 ft) Carcharodon carcharias. He survived the attack while the unnamed smaller one (~3 meters -9.8 ft) has reportedly not been seen since the battle, so Malski does not know if he survived.
Shark Vs Shark: Giant Great White Attacks Another Great White
In 2009, a 3 meter (9.8 ft) long great white shark was nearly bitten into two by a reportedly 6 meter (20 ft) long great white shark in Stradbroke Island, near Brisbane in Australia. Earlier this year, another 3-meter great white was killed and eaten by an even bigger predator: its electronic tag washed up on a beach with information revealing it spent eight days in the belly of a larger predator, suspected to have been a really large great white. A healthy female great white shark was electronically tagged in Australian waters as part of a large-scale tagging project that set out to investigate the movement of these animals along Australia’s coast. But 4 months after, the device washed up on the coast around 2.5 miles from where it was attached. When scientists retrieved the data from the tag, they were very surprised: the information showed that the device rapidly descended around 580 meters (1900 ft). However, there was also a concomitant temperature rise: the temperature increased from around 46°F (8°C) to 78°F (25.5°C), and remained there for 8 days.
Researchers believe that the only possible explanation for this is that it was eaten, probably by another great white shark, as these temperatures are suggestive of the digestive system of another predator.
Our Planet
Latest posts by Our Planet (see all)
- AI and Space Exploration: Paving the Way Forward - June 26, 2019
- Sea creatures store carbon in the ocean – could protecting them help slow climate change? - June 23, 2019
- Is Cloning the Future of Genomics? - June 18, 2019
