Lady Shark Gobbles Male Roomie in One Gulp

Sand tiger shark eats smaller male in South Korea
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 31, 2016 4:00 PM CST

A female shark paid her male roommate the ultimate insult Thursday in a South Korean aquarium: She ate the guy. And when the aquarium reopened Friday, only his tail was sticking out of her mouth. It's unclear why the seven-foot-long sand tiger shark slowly ate the smaller male at Seoul's COEX aquarium, but aquarium PR manager Oh Tae-youp suggests territorial issues. "Sharks have their own territory," he tells Reuters. "However, sometimes when they bump against each other, they bite out of astonishment."

He adds that the 8-year-old female likely swallowed the 5-year-old male whole, "because they usually eat it all when they bite the head part." Another spokesman for COEX agrees it could be territorial, because sand tiger sharks get more territorial during breeding periods, per AFP. But he says she'll probably regurgitate the shark because she won't be able to digest him all at once. "But that could take up to a week," he says. (More sharks stories.)

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