It's a shark eat shark world!

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Sharks have been known to eat just about anything - and that includes other sharks, as this picture shows.

Presenting rare photographic evidence of a shark eating another shark in a forthcoming issue of the journal Coral Reefs, Daniela Ceccarelli and David Williamson report on the occurrence of a Tasselled wobbegong shark (Eucrossorhinus dasypogon) eating a Brown-banded bamboo shark (Chylloscylium punctatum).

The authors encountered the spectacle while conducting a visual census of reef fishes on the fringing reefs of the Great Barrier Reef.

The wobbegong had the head of the bamboo shark in its mouth, with neither shark moving for the 30 minutes that the authors observed them.

The authors estimated that it would have taken a few more hours for the wobbegong to completely ingest the bamboo shark.

Wobbegongs have been known to eat other sharks from analyses of their stomach contents, but this is probably the first time it has been documented photographically.

For more information, see the paper: Ceccarelli, DM and DH Williamson (2012) Sharks that eat sharks: opportunistic predation by wobbegongs. Coral Reefs doi:10.1007/s00338-012-0878-z

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