Every summer, giant sharks take center stage at Palafox Pier and Yacht Harbor for the two-day Outcast Mega Shark Tournament.
But on Sunday, sharks had to share the limelight with what was discovered by Gulf Coast Research Laboratory scientists, who study and dissect the sharks after they’re weighed at the scales.
“This was a very interesting year,” said Jill Hendon, a fisheries biologist with the Research Laboratory, which is based at the University of Southern Mississippi. “We had a 948.6-pound tiger shark come in (Saturday). It looked very big and girthy, and we didn’t know what was in it. But when we looked at the stomach contents, this is what we found.”
Hendon smiled as she carefully held up the skull of a dolphin. Along with the skull, they found the dolphin’s tail and a long set of vertebrae.
“When we pieced it all together, we estimated that the dolphin was about 7 feet in length,” Hendon said. “It was really interesting.”
Full story and video: PNJ