Pot-bellied shark?

On last week's Wetpixel Bahamas shark trip, we came across this strange Caribbean reef shark. At first, most of us thought it was just a pregnant female, but it's a MALE! Does anybody know what would cause its belly to be so distended?

My guess would be that he ate WAY too much chum...

Didn't someone go missing around that area recently?

~Matt Segal

Hi Guys,

It wasn't just the stomach that was distended, it was the whole belly - it was blown up like a balloon.

James

Thanks, James - that's a better photo of his "deformity".

What was strange was that he didn't act "sick" -- he seemed very active and if anything MORE attentive to the divers than most of the other sharks. Several times, he went out of his way to swim towards me from 30 or 40 yards away...

Then again, I've always seemed to attract the "odder" characters in a group.

Indigestion, Gas…

Maybe some Rolaids might have helped.

Perhaps a Brokeback Mountain shark??

Not that there is anything wrong with that..

I once had a student that looked much the same after surfacing from a dive. She'd had 5 bananas for breakfast, just before the dive

Hahaha, brokeback wetpixel shark trip, only you Mike! Was there any female onboard to prove Mike wrong? Hahahaha

Now seriously, it is probably something that the shark ate. Since they are strict carnivores, they have a very short intestine and their stomach is most of their belly.

From the side he definitely looked like he had eaten too much (you can also see the claspers in this shot):

But when you saw this shark head on you could really see how inflated its whole body was - with just a thin head sticking out of the front.

Alex

I still vote he ate too much chum.

I explain the bloating in the non-stomach area to ate-too-much-every-day syndrome.

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This is bad news ecologically. 75% of American humans suffer from ATMED, it appears that the disease is now spreading to other species.

Perhaps a Brokeback Mountain shark??   

 

Not that there is anything wrong with that..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mike,

Haven't you heard? Brokeback Mountain II is coming out, and it stars Jessica Alba and Angelina Jolie Not that there's anything wrong with that either!!

Joe