Incredible footage has emerged of a great white shark that may be the ‘world’s most damaged’ shark. Check it out for yourself:
The massive marine monster was discovered near the Neptune Islands in South Australia, a region where 1,000 great white sharks are said to live.
This enormous man appears to have been squabbling with each and every one of them.
While those who captured the movie first speculated that the enormous predator was hurt by boat propellers or tuna nets, that theory has since been disproved.
The shark was described as ‘friendly’ and ‘quiet’ by underwater filmmaker Dean Spraakman, but the markings on it suggest otherwise.
“No one has ever seen a shark in this condition before,” Dean told the Sun.
“We saw white sharks pursuing stingrays down there because they hunt and eat them, and we assumed they chase them into shallow reef regions where it’s pretty spiky and it might get trapped and do that kind of damage.”
“You can only guess what occurred there, and to be honest, no one knows or will ever really know what causes that kind of damage to a shark, but I suppose the poor guy had a tough time.”
“I realized he had scars on him but didn’t realize how extensive they were until I went back over the film afterwards.”
“He was really calm and approachable, as well as fairly interested, which was fantastic.
“He was quite nice, peaceful, and unaffected by what he’d gone through.”
“He got within an arm’s reach of me – sometimes when you get a nice shark like that, they simply want to stare you in the eye and have a good look at who you are,” she said.
While we don’t know for sure in this case, National Geographic explorer Professor Yannis Papastamatiou believes some of the markings were made by shark fights.
“Females are generally severely damaged by mating behavior, but males can be bitten as well during dominance interactions between sharks, for example, a larger shark may desire a smaller shark and control the smaller individual with a non-fatal warning bite,” he told the Sun.
“Some of the scarring around the face might be caused by their prey, such as seals,” says the author.
Given that we know there are vast numbers of great whites – some as large as 20 feet – in the region where this was sighted, it seems possible.
It looks badass in any case.
Featured Image Credit: Sea Dragon Films