Fatal tiger shark, Galeocerdo cuvier attack in New Caledonia erroneously ascribed to great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias

Abstract

To understand the causes and patterns of shark attacks on humans, accurate identification of the shark species involved is necessary. Often, the only reliable evidence for this comes from the characteristics of the wounds exhibited by the victim. The present case report is intended as a reappraisal of the Luengoni, 2007 case (International Shark Attack File no. 4299) where a single shark bite provoked the death of a swimmer by haemorrhagic shock. Our examination of the wounds on the body of the victim, here documented by so-far unpublished photographic evidence, determined that the shark possessed large and homodontous jaws. This demonstrates that the attacker was a tiger shark, not a great white shark as previously published.

Contribution of Forensic Analysis to Shark Profiling Following Fatal Attacks on Humans

“…The hypothesis of the white shark should then prevail. Also, based on behavioural features of the attack (provided by a witness), Clua and Séret [42,43] concluded that the candidate species for this 2007 attack in Lifou Island was a white shark and not a tiger shark as supported by Tirard et al [44]. This choice seems to be supported by the tools provided by Lowry et al [40].…”

“…Case study A: description of the wound on a 23-year-old female fatally bitten in a shallow water lagoon in New Caledonia. This case study was adapted from [42][43][44] (same case).…”

“…Considering the size of the bite width of 38 cm [44], the total length of the shark would range between 352 and 410 cm TL for a great white shark (for a similar bite width, a tiger shark would be between 250 and 383 cm TL) ( Table 4).…”

“…Using a BC of 596 mm [44] and based on the regressions provided by [40], the species involved in this fatal attack seems to be a great white shark of about 3.5-m TL (Figure 8). However, these regressions also show that given a BW of 38 cm, the BC should be much lower than 59.6 cm for the attacker to be a tiger shark for which the TL would range from 250 to 383 cm TL (as shown in Table 4).…”

Development and successful real‐world use of a transfer DNA technique to identify species involved in shark bite incidents

“…As a consequence, the species involved is not positively identified in ~70% of global shark bite incidents (data from the International Shark Attack Files, 2010-2019 bites; floridamuseum.ufl.edu/shark-attacks/). It may be possible to use bite impressions left in victims or their apparel or accessories (e.g., wetsuits or surfboards) to identify culprit species, but even experts using this approach have disagreed over the interpretation of bite impressions [4][5][6][7][8]. Modern DNA technology provides a potential tool for definitive species identification provided sufficient DNA is transferred from the shark to the victim or victim's articles (e.g., surfboard, wetsuit, paddle) and adheres despite immersion in seawater.…”