Shark gives another Caesarean bite and saves babies

Nov 10, 2009, 18:58 GMT

Wellington - A shark in a New Zealand aquarium bit the stomach of another one, effectively giving it a Caesarean operation and saving the lives of four babies, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Staff at Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, in Auckland, were initially dubious when visitors came running to tell them that baby fish were spilling from a wound in a female school shark's stomach after it had been bitten by another shark, the New Zealand Herald reported.

But they found the female with a large gaping stomach wound and four babies swimming in the tank.

Aquarist Fiona Davies said it was common for sharks to take chunks out of each other, even in the wild, but she had never heard of anything like the effective operation, which had probably saved the babies' lives.

She said staff did not know the mother was pregnant and if she had given birth naturally, most likely at night, the babies would have been eaten by adult sharks and stingrays before they could be rescued.

Davies said the shark that helped had to bite a certain part of the stomach to release the babies without killing them or the mother.

The young sharks were removed to a nursery tank where visitors can view them before they are released into the wild.