Whale Shark

Here is a image of a Whale Shark with a bite out of it. Maybe Great White.

and another angle

It was still quite happy swimming along.

Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spill your beer with a gash like that in your throat! poor bugger! How long would you guestimate the whale shark? might give us an idea on how big whatever it was that bit it....

Orca?

Shark was a a small one. 4+ meters I suppose.

We sent the pic off to the experts and they recond it was a White.

We do get Orcas here every year for a few days and and we recond they are hunting the sharks as when ever the Orcas are around the Whale Sharks are nowhere to be seen.

In general Sharks leave quite messy wounds, with this being perfectly circular and so deep i would think you can rule out sharks and orcas. Maybe you have huge mutant cokkie cutter sharks there.. Could it have had a small wound / infection and the remoras gradually wore it away by sitting in the crater or nibbling on it?

Mustard or Rocha, being the Biology gurus should have no problem with this one...

We did think of a huge mutant cokkie cutter. Could of started out small and got bigger.

Here is another pic of another shark..now that must of hurt. We spotted it the very next year again.

And I found these to.. yep I won't say who was flying the plane but I never though a Cessna could do loops

He was having engine problems hence the low altitude

Interesting to see but I bet that is more common than we think. Wonder if the whale shark will live...infection and all.

Joe

Woah! Those first shots blew my mind...

What exactly are we looking at inside that wound. Does that actually go all the way through into its mouth/gills or something? I can't imagine that won't kill it somehow or other.

By the way..what a great project idea. You should take your HD vid on a quest to film what is happening out there. What I wouldn't give to see some of that footage!

Is the text below about these sharks?

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/innew...erwhale2003.htm

Orcas are known to attack whale sharks, so my bet is it was an orca on both cases. In the first photos, I agree that the remoras (or other small commensal fish) helped in making the bite deeper/rounder.

Luiz

P.S.: If the photos above where taken after 2003, it would be interesting if you contact the guys at the Florida Museum and let them know about theses images. Their address is:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/