Concurrent scavenging off a whale carcass by great white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias, and tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier

The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias (Lamnidae), and the tiger shark, Galeocerdo cuvier (Carcharhinidae), are two of the largest species of macropredatory sharks. Both are known to prey on dolphins (Delphinidae) off KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Cockcroft et al., 1989). Although scavenging off whale carcasses by white sharks (Carey et al., 1982; Pratt et al., 1982; McCosker, 1985; Long and Jones, 1996) and tiger sharks (Compagno et al., 1998) has been documented, the two species have not been recorded feeding concurrently on the same carcass. In August 1993, Natal Sharks Board (NSB) observers saw both species feeding on the carcass of a humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae, off Durban, but they were not seen scav enging concurrently (NSB1). In September 1997, elsewhere in the southwest Indian Ocean, tiger sharks were fi lmed feeding on a humpback whale carcass off the southern tip of Madagascar, but no white sharks were present. Compagno2 subsequently viewed the footage and verifi ed the identifi cation of the tiger sharks. This paper presents observations of white and tiger sharks scavenging off the fl oating carcass of a Bryde’s whale, Balaenoptera edeni, off the coast of Concurrent scavenging off a whale carcass by great white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias, and tiger sharks, Galeocerdo cuvier