Hammerhead shark fights tarpon as Florida boaters watch in shock
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A Florida woman out for a boat ride on Sunday captured shocking footage of what appears to be a hammerhead shark chasing its next meal -- a massive tarpon.
Whitney Phillips Watson was on a boat in Bean Point, just a few hundred yards off the coast of Anna Maria Island, when she noticed a hammerhead in the water.
As the boat got closer, however, she saw that the shark was in fact chasing a tarpon, a saltwater fish that can reach nearly 8-feet in length and weigh more than 250 pounds, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
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“That is a big hammerhead,” Watson can be heard saying in the video, asking the driver of the boat to “not get too close.”
At multiples points while Watson films the chase, the hammerhead dives under the boat.
"I'm shaking! I am shaking," Watson repeated.
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Watson told WTXL it appeared the hammerhead, which she estimated to be about 10 to 12 feet in length, was “playing” with the tarpon before eating it.
"It finally ate the poor tarpon after playing with it a few more minutes. It was proud and wanted to show us what it had," Watson later said on Facebook. "It reminds me of my cat playing with lizards before he chomps them in half."