The dramatic ocean saga that led to three men being rescued this week from a sinking inflatable catamaran off the Australian coast has been pinned on an unusual culprit: a small, cigar-shaped shark that leaves such perfectly round wounds it’s called the cookiecutter.
Three men on board an inflatable catamaran were pulled from the sea in the early hours of Wednesday after “several shark attacks” left their vessel partially sunken off the Australian northeastern coast.
Talk of the “invaders” started in the early spring. Along Italy’s northern Adriatic coast and in Tuscan fish farms workers were pulling up their nets and finding them chewed to threads.
Older than dinosaurs and trees, sharks have endured a lot throughout their 450 million years on Earth. They’ve even survived five mass extinctions, including the asteroid that wiped out 75% of life on the planet. But many species of these aquatic apex predators are now in danger of dying out forever.