Posted on 10/21/2023 6:47:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A great white shark that washed up on a beach in Australia appeared to be half-eaten. Scientists said the shark was likely attacked by an orca that just wanted to eat its liver. Advertisement
A great white shark that appeared half-eaten when it washed up on an Australian beach had probably been attacked by a killer whale that just wanted its liver, wildlife scientists said.
Portland Bait and Tackle in Victoria, Australia, posted photos of the white shark carcass to their Facebook page on Tuesday, calling it "equal parts cool and terrifying." The bait shop manager, Ben Johnstone, told Insider the shark was about 3 meters long, or nearly 10 feet.
Johnstone said they believed killer whales had attacked the shark because they had been spotted in the area a couple days prior to the shark carcass appearing on the beach. He also noted that killer whales have been documented attacking white sharks.
Killer whales off the coast of South Africa have been documented on several occasions attacking great white sharks specifically to eat their livers. Rare footage captured for Discovery Channel's Shark Week in 2022 showed three orcas killing a great white shark in order to eat its liver. The video supported a study published last year that suggested killer whale attacks had forced white sharks to flee from waters near South Africa. The study also found some of the whales had removed the shark's hearts as well.
An orca likely 'slurped out' the liver of a half-eaten great white shark that washed up on an Australian beach, scientists say A great white shark carcass that washing up on an Australian beach and was likely attacked by a killer whale.Portland Bait and Tackle Orcas hunting white sharks has also been documented near Australia, Lauren Meyer, a trophic ecologist at Flinders University, told the Australian outlet ABC News. Meyer said she could not say for sure that the shark carcass had been attacked by a killer whale. But she said that it was likely an orca attacked the shark to "slurp out" its liver.
Advertisement "We see this with things like humpback whales, where [killer whales] come in and actually eat the tongue and leave the rest of the whale," Meyer told ABC. "We certainly see that they prefer the liver of white sharks, mako sharks, bronze whalers and sevengills, and even tiger sharks."
Meyer added there have been at least nine documented interactions between white sharks and orcas near Australia and New Zealand. She added she was not surprised to see the carcass wash up in the area, noting its a corridor for white sharks and that orcas are known to hunt there.
An orca likely 'slurped out' the liver of a half-eaten great white shark that washed up on an Australian beach, scientists say A great white shark carcass that washing up on an Australian beach and was likely attacked by a killer whale.Portland Bait and Tackle Vanessa Pirotta, a wildlife scientist in Australia, also said the shark was likely targeted by an orca for its liver, the Australian outlet 9News reported.
Pirotta said orcas are "very strategic and clever" and that scientists are still trying to understand why then can also be such "picky eaters."
As for the white sharks that likely fled waters in South Africa over the orca attacks, they've recently been found — a study published this month indicated the sharks had actually migrated east.
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NEXT STORY Home›Science›News»Earth's Mysterious Core Appears To Be Leaking, Leaving Scientists Baffled Earth's mysterious core appears to be leaking, leaving scientists baffled MARIANNE GUENOTOCT 20, 2023, 20:04 IST Earth's mysterious core appears to be leaking, leaving scientists baffled Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock Scientists have spotted high levels of a specific type of helium called ³He/⁴He in Arctic lava. This could suggest the Earth's core is "leaking" helium. Advertisement
Earth's mysterious core is, once again, baffling scientists with its strange behavior.
A study of 62-million-year-old lava flows on Baffin Island in the Arctic Archipelago has found unusually high levels of helium-3 (³He), a rare isotope that is associated with the insides of our planet.
The study suggests the Earth's core may be leaking the rare helium, upheaving the belief that the giant ball of molten iron at the center of our planet is sealed away.
"I find this exciting because it suggests that the deep Earth is more dynamic than we realized," Forrest Horton, a geochemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and lead author on the study, told Vice's Motherboard.
A clue into the Earth's insides When ³He is found trapped in rock, scientists tend to think it comes from material that was bombarded by the sun at the very beginning of our planet's history.
Advertisement That's because Earth itself doesn't produce much ³He, and any ³He that escapes from Earth floats straight into space. Additionally, ³He that comes from solar radiation today bounces back to space thanks to our planet's magnetic field.
It follows that high levels of ³He found in rock today would have come from the birth of our planet.
Seeing ³He in rocks is not that uncommon — its level is measured as a proportion of ³He compared to another helium isotope found in rock, ⁴He. Scientists have traced most of the ³He-rich rocks back to the Earth's mantle.
What puzzled scientists in this latest study is just how much ³He was in the Baffin Islands lava olivine rocks.
Earth's mysterious core appears to be leaking, leaving scientists baffled An illustration of Earth's core.iStock / Getty Images Plus The ³He/⁴He ratio found in the Baffin Islands should not be possible The Earth's mantle isn't static. It's constantly spewing lava to the surface, and gobbling up pieces of the Earth's crust. With all that churning, some of the isotope originally preserved inside the planet has escaped over time.
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However, scientists say there's a limit to how much ³He can be found in a rock that comes from the mantle. Anything above that limit likely means the helium originates from elsewhere.
"What was surprising was that we measured ³He/⁴He ratios that extend to much higher values than previously thought," Horton said.
The next logical assumption then, is an even more challenging one: the rock comes from deeper within — meaning the core. That, in itself, could rewrite what we know about our planet.
"Traditionally, the core and outer layers of our planet (mantle and crust) were presumed to be geochemically isolated (i.e., material does not transfer back and forth)," Horton told Vice in an email.
The finding, Horton told Vice, "lends credence to the idea that material, or at least helium, leaks out of the core."
Advertisement "I find this exciting because it suggests that the deep Earth is more dynamic than we realized: elements move between the metallic and rocky parts of our planet," he said, per Vice.
"One important question is, assuming helium is leaking out of the core, whether any other elements also escape from the core? And when did these elements migrate into the rocky part of the planet?" he said.
The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on August 30.
As terrifying as a Great White can be, proof that things more terrific feed upon them.
Fava beans
The killer whales off San Francisco have learned the trick (and teach it to their young) to flip a great white upside-down to make it go to sleep, so they can eat it at their leisure. A pair of whales probably each grab it by a pectoral fin and manhandle it upside-down.
These killer whales also are believed to specialize in only eating the sharks’ livers.
I first learned about this behavior in David Attenborough’s fantastic Blue Planet II
Those jaws would fetch a nice price on Ebay.
South Africa’s False Bay used to be known as the Great White capital of the world. Over the last 5 or 6 years they have practically disappeared and the suspicion is a couple of orcas hunting in the area.
Damn
And my daughter just brought me filet-o-fish
You gotta start small and work your way up.
But Orcas aren’t much of a threat to humans. Maybe in captivity, a little.
Hopefully it’s the liver.
I personally prefer paté with onions.
Thanks
Thanks a lot
Uuurrrp
The most dangerous animals to humans are Nile river crocs. They are aggressive unprovoked.
In the book (which I didn’t read), the wine was apparently actually “a big Amarone”.
Mosquitoes kill more people than anything other living creature in Africa. Hippos are second. Crocs are third.
I had “cut out by the Chinese as an aphrodisiac “ in the pool
My sister and brother-in-law lived in East Africa for 3 decades. We heard many personal stories from them. Hippos are visible and can be avoided easily. Crocs are hard to see since most of their bodies are under water. Mosquitoes are not animals. I was talking about animals, not insects.
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