Scientists dumbfounded after shark eats polar bear

Edinburgh, August 12 : Scientists have left stunned by the discovery of a shark that had eaten a polar bear.

According to a report in The Scotsman, part of the jaw of a young polar bear was found in the stomach of a Greenland shark in Svalbard, northern Norway.

"We've never heard of this before. We don't know how it got there. We can't say whether or not the shark took a swimming young bear or ate a carcass," said Kit Kovacs, of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

"We don't know how active these sharks are as predators," he added.

However, shark experts think it was likely the bear was dead before the shark found it. Even a young bear would be a ferocious opponent for a Greenland shark.

"It sounds like a scavenger," said Steve Campana, the head of the Canadian shark research laboratory at the department of fisheries and oceans.

Campana said that he had not heard of a shark eating a bear before.

According to Jeffrey Gallant, the co-director of a Canadian-based shark research group,"There's no possibility a Greenland shark could predate a live adult white bear, unless it was injured or seriously ill."

Gallant said the Greenland shark would not be able to afford the risk of injury, or the expenditure of energy needed to kill such a large and dangerous animal.

"There is far easier prey to be found," he said.

ANI