In an oceanic take on a “man bites dog” story, a Goliath grouper swallowed a shark in one gulp off Everglades City, in Southwest Florida.
The grouper and shark were caught on video from a charter fishing boat captained by Jimmy Wheeler, who was taking an Indiana family out for some offshore deep sea fishing, the Miami Herald reported.
One member of the party caught a three-foot reef shark and began reeling it in. Then, from out of nowhere, a Goliath grouper, estimated at about 500 pounds, came up behind the shark and swallowed it whole.
The video soon went viral.
“To be with people who had never seen this kind of thing before makes me really love my job,” Wheeler told Garden & Gun.
Wheeler’s wife Michelle, who wasn’t on the charter but saw the footage afterwards, was amazed.
“He just sucked it in,” she told Fox News. “I don’t remember ever seeing anything this crazy.”
Wheeler said the mammoth grouper ended up spitting the shark out, but then swallowed a stingray someone in the party caught a few minutes later.
Goliath groupers have been a protected species since 1990 because of over-harvesting.
"We snorkel and see they'll just go by a fish and suck it in. They're huge. They didn't get that way from not eating," Michelle joked, Fox News reported.
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