A women got a bit of a startle when a six-foot nurse shark clamped down on her hand while snorkeling in the shallows of the Caribbean during her honeymoon.
Sarah Illig posted a video of the encounter, which was filmed by her husband Evan Carroll, to YouTube. Ill was not seriously injured by the encounter.
“Mid snorkeling with the sharks I felt a whoosh of water, something clamp down on my arm and assumed my husband was playing a prank of me,” Illig wrote in the video’s description. “Less than a second later I realized how much it hurt and looked past where my goggles were blocking my side vision to see the shark (bigger than myself) latched on to my arm. I pulled it away/the combination of the shark releasing and got out of there.”
Nurse sharks pose little to no threat to humans despite reaching lengths of up to 15 feet and weighing in over 700 pounds. Most bites occur when divers or swimmers unintentionally disturb the sharks, which can lay sedentary on sandy ocean floors or hidden within crevices in reefs and other structure. Because they are primarily bottom feeders that inhale their prey rather than tear and slash like most sharks, their tiny teeth rarely cause serious damage.
It is likely that the shark in the video had become accustomed to being hand-fed by humans and mistook Illig’s outstretched arm as a free meal.
