<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/06/tiger-shark-regurgitates-eats-echidna-australia>
"The last thing a group of scientists busy tagging marine animals along the
coast of north Queensland expected to see was a shark regurgitate a fully
intact echidna – but that is exactly what happened.
In what is believed to be a world-first, researchers from James Cook
University, including former PhD student Dr Nicolas Lubitz, were tagging marine
wildlife off the coast of Orpheus Island between Townsville and Lucinda in May
2022.
Until that point it was a pretty “standard day” for the group of scientists,
who had already tagged hundreds of marine animals before the tiger shark they
had wrangled vomited a whole, dead echidna, leaving the group “stunned”.
“My theory is the echidna was swimming from one island to another [via a narrow
channel], probably looking for food or for mates, and just got unlucky and got
snapped by a big tiger shark,” Lubitz said.
“I would be very surprised if that has ever been recorded before … I don’t
think it’s too common that they would feed on echidnas.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
