Tiger shark regurgitating echidna witnessed by marine biologist in ‘very rare’ incident off QLD

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In the famous 1975 film Jaws, Richard Dreyfuss’ character Matt Hooper, a marine biologist, remarks, “A tiger shark’s like a garbage can, they’ll eat anything”. Almost 50 years later, in waters off north Queensland, the species lived up to that reputation when it swallowed a live echidna — and then regurgitated it. Nicolas Lubitz, a marine biologist from James Cook University, was tagging marine creatures off Orpheus Island when he caught the “decent-sized” 3m shark.

“When it spat it out, I looked at it and remarked, ‘What the hell is that?’. “It was a fully intact echidna with all its spines and its legs.” Lubitz “scrambled” to get his phone to take a photo of the scene that unfolded before him. He believes the shark would have eaten the echidna as it swam between islands. The creatures are known to be strong swimmers. Sharks regurgitating their food is “very rare” but is known to happen when they are “stressed”, Lubitz said.

 

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