Very Aussie moment James Cook University team capture a tiger shark coughing up an entire echidna in ‘world-first discovery’

It was just another day for a group of scientists – until a tiger shark regurgitated an echidna.

The research team from James Cook University had seen some sights highlighting marine life off the coast of Queensland, especially tiger sharks.

They have been known to eat anything: seabirds, tires, license plates and even small TV screens.

‘They’re just scavengers. I’ve seen videos of them eating a rock for no reason,” said marine biologist Nicolas Lubitz.

Yet Dr.’s JCU team was Lubitz remains baffled by what a three-metre tiger shark vomited when they wrangled it near Orpheus Island off Queensland’s north coast.

“It was a completely intact echidna with all its spines and legs,” said Dr. Lubitz, describing it as a “world first.”

‘It was quite a big tiger shark, but it wasn’t huge. It’s rare for them to throw up their food, but sometimes they can if they get stressed.

“In this case, I think the echidna just felt a little strange in its throat.”

What had been a standard day of tagging marine life quickly turned upside down.

‘We were quite shocked by what we saw. We really didn’t know what was going on,” Dr. Lubitz said.

“When he spit it out, I looked at it and said, ‘What the hell is that?’.”

Dr. Lubitz believed the hapless echidna may have been picked up while trying to swim from one island to another in search of food or a mate.

The echidna was still intact when it was regurgitated, indicating it was a recent kill.

The tiger shark quickly recovered after clearing its throat and was fitted with an acoustic tracker before being released unharmed.

The May 2022 incident occurred during a four-year, statewide, multi-agency investigative effort that will release its records.

Marine biologist Dr Nicholas Lubitz (pictured) and his team from James Cook University were baffled by what the shark had regurgitated

Dr. Lubitz and his team fitted the shark with an acoustic tracker before releasing the creature unharmed into the water

The project has so far tagged more than 800 marine animals with 10-year trackers from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait.

Researchers will be able to analyze migration patterns of different species when full data downloads become available later this year.

New information has already been revealed.

“We have observed movements of species such as shovelnose rays traveling from Townsville to the Sunshine Coast, which people never thought were migrating in the first place,” Dr Lubitz said.

But it seems few discoveries can match the surprise of the echidna incident – although another sick tiger shark came close during their research.

‘A big chunk of blubber came out and then a full spine. I think it was a dugong calf that it was dealing with,” Dr. Lubitz said.