A pregnant porbeagle shark is believed to have been eaten by a great white, with the larger predator swallowing its tracking device off the coast of Bermuda, scientists report.
A large, predatory shark swimming near Bermuda was gobbled up by an even bigger shark — even swallowing the tracking device that was attached to it — in what scientists say is the first recorded case of its kind.
Porbeagle sharks (Lamna nasus) can grow to about 12 feet (3.6 meters) long. These large sharks patrol the Northern Atlantic Ocean as well as parts of the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere, ranging into the Antarctic. Their muscular, streamlined forms and angled, spear-like teeth make them formidable predators. But the porbeagle, it seems, is not immune to predation itself.
In a paper published Tuesday (Sept. 3) in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers describe the likely predation of a porbeagle shark by one of its larger relatives. “This is the first documented predation event of a porbeagle shark anywhere in the world”, study lead author Brooke Anderson, marine fisheries biologist with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said in a statement.
The pregnant female shark was tagged in October 2020 using both a satellite transmitter and a pop-off satellite archival tag (PSAT) near Cape Cod.
