An unusually large tiger shark
It was on the Facebook account of a certain Geoff Brooks that the awe-inspiring photos first appeared. They show the body of a colossal tiger sharkmeasuring between 13 and 20 feet. According to Brooks, the shark was caught off Seven Mile Beach. He explained in his post:
I was told it had been caught a little further away on the weekend.
Another fisherman told The Northern Star:
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I was fighting a hammerhead and this enormous shark came up and swallowed it. I was the one that took that photo and I was the one that caught that fish.
Matthew claims that the reason the image was online was because he had posted the photo on a shark identification page on Facebook claiming he initially thought it was a great white but it was actually a tiger shark. Matthew also claimed that this beast of the ocean was 'only a little one' compared to the others he's seen.
Shark's body to be used for science
Some say that the shark was later spotted at the local market, others explain that it was transported to be examined in a research centre. A spokesperson for Australia's National Science Agency stated:
We've seen the photos but we haven't got any information that it has been handed in or where it was caught. There has been no indication from staff that it has been handed in to a CSIRO site, all we can say is that it is a tiger shark and not a white.