A scientist who witnessed a tiger shark vomiting up an echidna during a three-year project off the Queensland coast described it as a 'one in a million' sight.

James Cook University marine biologist Nicolas Lubitz shared this story ahead of the release of project data later this year.

He mentioned that tiger sharks are scavengers and have been known to eat seabirds, tyres, license plates, and even a small TV screen.

However, Dr.

Lubitz said that watching a shark throw up a dead echidna near Orpheus Island, east of Ingham in North Queensland, was something extraordinary.

The Biopixel Oceans Foundation researcher is part of a state-wide, multi-agency project that tagged more than 800 marine animals with 10-year trackers between 2020 and 2023.

Dhufish, snapper, mullet, shovelnose rays, and various species of sharks were tagged with acoustic and satellite trackers from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait.

Lubitz mentioned that he had helped tag about 200 tiger sharks, but this was the first and only time he had seen a shark vomit an echidna.

'This one just threw up an echidna, which was quite a surprise to us,' he said of the May 2022 incident.

'We know that they have quite a wide range of prey species that they feed on, but I definitely didn't think an echidna was on the menu.

''Sometimes when you wrangle them, they get a little bit stressed, and one of the stress responses is to throw up their food, especially if it's food that is not quite sitting right,' he explained.

He said the tiger shark probably caught the unlucky echidna swimming in a narrow channel between Orpheus Island and Fantome Island.

Lubitz said new information about the behavior of a range of marine animals had been gathered during the project.

A James Cook University spokesman said more data from the project would be made available later this year.

Riley Elliott is a shark researcher who is determined to protect the tiger sharks off Norfolk Island, which feast on cow carcasses dumped by farmers on the old penal colony.

The sharks and their.

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A scientific study on shark presence and behavior is to resume shortly in New Caledonia's Southern Province, where two incidents in February last year prompted an indiscriminate culling campaign.

They've been roaming our oceans for more than 400 million years, quietly recording the planet's climate history.