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On 1 Jun 1994 A.APPLEYARD@fs*.mt*.um*.ac*.uk* wrote: > >> Carcharodon carcharias (The Great White, or White Pointer) has eaten (not > > Are sharks the only sea animal dangerous to man as a predator rather than as > a stinger? In the 1960's I read a few times of supergiant groupers swallowing > snorkellers, and of one such victim that managed to escape through its gills. > I read a small article in a 1960's or 1970's issue of `Skin Diver' (a USA > scuba diving magazine) of a supergiant grouper trying to swallow a scuba > diver: it suddenly rushed out of ambush and sucked him completely into its > mouth, fins and all, but ejected him alive with his cylinder dented right in > by the heavy crushing teeth on the inside of its gill cage. The critter of which you speak is Epinephelus lanceolatus (throughout the Indo-Pacific, anyway; the Carribean jewfish is another species). It can get about 10 feet long and more than 400 kg. I've heard reports on one living under a pier in New Guinea that devoured a couple of kids, and there are also unconfirmed attacks on pearl divers. I've been "inspected" by this species in a manor similar to the way I've seen groupers approach prey items in aquaria. When I've seen them, I generaly try to keep my distance. Arthur C.Clarke in > a book "The Reefs of Taprobane" that he wrote about one of his diving > expeditions, wrote that in the Elphinstone Inlet on the coast of Ceylon (now > Sri Lanka) in an enormous sunken `floating dock' he saw a grouper over 20 feet > long, and 4 feet wide side to side, and in his opinion able to swallow a scuba > diver whole, cylinder and all. 20 feet long sounds like an over-estimation. They are about 4 feet wide when they are 10 feet long, and at that size could easily engulf a diver. Aloha, Rich
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