Vomiting shark shocks Australian scientists

Nicolas Lubitz, a marine biologist from James Cook University, said he had never come across such an episode before.

“I reckon it’s about one in a million,” he said. “Sometime 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 said.

“And I can imagine that an echidna wasn’t quite sitting right,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Echidnas are widely thought to be land-based animals but in fact they are sometimes seen swimming among mangroves off islands in northern Queensland.

“They use their little nose as a snorkel — they’re quite good swimmers, actually,” said Dr Lubitz.

Tiger sharks are not choosy in their choice of food. They will eat turtles, birds, sea snakes, stingrays and other sharks and occasionally attack surfers and swimmers. They have even been known to swallow discarded licence plates, tin cans, bones, car tyres and even a small television.