Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Will Maule

Bloodthirsty great white sharks rip apart whale carcass in horror photo

A trio of great white sharks have been spotted tearing apart a floating whale carcass.

The deceased humpback whale was an easy target for the predators who located the massive mammal off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, reported the Daily Star.

The whale was like the "biggest smorgasbord" for a shark, said Peter Corkeron at the Kraus Marine Mammal Conservation Program of the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

An adult humpback can weigh around 40 tonnes - far more meat than a fully grown great white would consume each year, which amounts to roughly 12 tonnes.

Horror photo shows 3 bloodthirsty great white shark feasting on a whale (NOAA Fisheries New England/Mid-Atlantic)

Get the news you want straight to your inbox. Sign up for a Mirror newsletter here

On Tuesday NOAA Fisheries New England/Mid-Atlantic updated followers on a call out it had with Marine Mammal Alliance Nantucket to a decomposing 40ft long whale.

The US Coast Guard was also deployed to assist with gathering data about the mystery death.

Horror photo shows 3 bloodthirsty great white shark feasting on a whale (Atlantic White Shark Conservancy Sharktivity App)

The NOAA wrote: "Although these are always sad occasions, it is important to learn as much about each death as we can so that we can better understand the whales in our area.

"There is an ongoing unusual mortality event (UME) in effect for humpback whales along the Atlantic coast. At this point, we don’t have a single cause for these deaths, though some have been hit by vessels."

Another great white was spotted on off the coast of Nantucket on Monday when a seal was mauled just off Great Point.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.