A pair of fishermen have pulled a shark missing most of its body from the depths of the ocean.
Sammy Hitzke and Shaun Whale shared footage of their extraordinary find during a fishing trip off the coast of Queensland, about 250km from the Gold Coast.
The two men managed to hook what they initially believe is a big fish on the other end and spend the next several hours trying to reel it in.
As Shaun reels in the catch closer to the pair’s boat, the two men discover they have actually hooked a big shark.
‘It could be a shark,’ Sammy tells Shaun as their catch heads towards the surface and becomes more visible.
The pair notice a chunk of the shark’s torso missing, with Sammy adding: ‘It looks like it’s been sharked. Shark’s been sharked.’
They manage to pull the dead shark, which they identify as a thresher shark, to the surface of the water as they begin to inspect it.
The thresher appears to only have its vertebrae connecting the front half of its body – from the pectoral fins to its tail, with the remainder of the shark’s flesh eaten away.
As the two men haul the dead fish up onto their boat, Sammy notices that the shark also has another hook lodged into its mouth.
‘I can’t believe he got sharked. Sharks getting sharked,’ the YouTuber says with excitement.
‘This is epic, this is proper epic. He’s got three quarters of himself missing.’
Sammy and Shaun eventually get the shark onto their boat to have a better look.
Wow, wow, wow, that’s a proper monster of the deep,’ Sammy continued.
He later identifies shark teeth marks along the thresher’s gills.
‘Not going to lie to ya, I’m absolutely exhausted,’ Shaun tells the camera. ‘This might be the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on the ocean.’
‘I’ve done a lot of fishing, I’ve spent a lot of time out in the big blue and not once did I think it was a thresher shark that got eaten by something I can only imagine that was absolutely massive. This might be the most epic thing I’ve seen off-shore.’
Many followers of the pair expressed their amazement by the unique find in the comment section of the YouTube video and congratulated the two fisherman.
Others tried to take a guess what creature ate from the shark’s body, with some guessing different shark species while one or two users suggested a giant squid could be the culprit.
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