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Boaters were left stunned after a great white shark came to greet them – before attacking a whale carcass.
The apex predator was captured on video swimming off the coast of Florida in the US.
Video captured by Brian Jung and Daniel Delatorre on March 17 shows the shark appear out of the blue and glide to a boat that was 15 miles offshore from Sarasota in 50 feet of water.
The shark’s jaws hang open as it approaches the boat, revealing two rows of formidable teeth.
The hungry shark before it munched on the whale carcass (Credits: Brian Paul Jung via Storyful)
The animal’s body was full of scars.
One boater said the shark is ‘going to eat our engine’ as its head hit the rear, Mail Online reports.
It then swims over to the bloated whale carcass floating just yards away and begins to rip off chunks of rotting flesh.
A floating feast (Credits: Brian Paul Jung via Storyful)
Suddenly it swims over to another boat where a brave man man sticks his hand into the water to pet the shark’s head.
A total of three sharks were seen feasting on the whale carcass, Jung told WFLA.
The massive dead sperm whale had been towed out to sea after it became stranded south of Sarasota near Venice a week earlier.
Officials said it was an adult male whale measuring 44 feet long and weighing 70,000 pounds (35,000 tons).
The breached sperm whale before it was towed out to the sea (Credit: 10 Tampa Bay)
As the breached animal’s breathing grew more laboured throughout the day, wildlife officials said they didn’t expect it to survive.
The animal died around 3am on March 11.
It was emaciated and covered in wounds from suspected attacks by other male sperm whales, one of the largest whale species in the world.
‘Obviously this whale wasn’t feeling very well and wasn’t doing very well to be this close to shore and in this kind of condition,’ Laura Engleby, chief of marine mammal branch NOAA fisheries, Southeast Region, told WFLA.
Then researchers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission attracted a curious crowd of beachgoers as they cut into the carcass to collect lab samples.
The whale’s blood turned the waves red, prompting a no-swim advisory in the area (Credits: ABC7 Sarasota – WWSB)
The coastal water turned red from its blood, prompting officials to ban swimming due to ‘possible increased predatory activity’ in the area which was later lifted.
Sharks can smell a drop of blood from up to a quarter of a mile away.
Gulf of Mexico is home to 22 species of sharks, including the notorious bull shark and tiger shark.
Adult great whites can grow up to 20 feet.
But sperm wales are a rare sighting in the southeast US.
Experts spot around two per year, Engleby said.
The last recorded sighting in the Gulf coast was in 2008.
A starving, 47-foot male breached itself in the Key West islands two years ago.
It had swallowed so much trash it could no longer eat its usual diet of squid, sharks and fish.
Sperm whales
Size
Sperm whales are the largest toothed whale in the world.
It is not uncommon for them to dive to depths of more than 10,000 feet and hang around in deep waters.
Females can grow up to 40 feet in length and weigh around 3,300 pounds, while males can reach 52 feet and weigh up to 9,900 pounds – about thirty times as heavy as an average car.
Threat from human activity
Despite its size, the gentle giant of the oceans is facing a risk from humans.
The species was targeted by hunters since the 17th century because of a waxy substance called spermaceti found in an organ in their heads.
The substance was once used in lamp oils, cosmetics, candles and lubricants.
Whale numbers are recovering, although they still face risks such hitting vessels, fishing line, underwater noise, marine debris and climate change, NOAA said.
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