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Stunning Great White Shark Photobomb Filmed Off South Africa [Video]

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 09:20 PST, Jul 7, 2015

A group of cage divers have managed to capture stunning footage of a great white shark photobombing another of its species off the coast of South Africa, as they faced the predators from behind protective bars in the waters of Mossel Bay.

The video was captured at Seal Island, according to Grind TV, a popular hotspot for great whites. Remo Sabatini recorded the footage while on an expedition with White Shark Africa, having entered the water in a cage with six other divers.

The unexpected clip unfolded as Sabatini was recording a great white up close, while it attempted to rip a chunk of tuna from the side of the cage. Though the white shark appears to be making a beastly sound as it tears at the bait, White Shark Africa spokesman Dan Abbott pointed out that the noise wasn’t originating from the shark, but rather the camera as it rubbed against the cage.

While Sabatini filmed the great white’s terrifying maw just inches away, his GoPro managed to capture something else that changed his footage from exceptional to incredible. Without warning, another white shark breached in the background of his shot, rocketing from the ocean with incredible force. The great white’s entire body was ejected from the sea, arching through the air behind the first shark as the divers faced them.

According to Abbott, the breaching shark caught the entire crew by surprise. Though the behavior has been recorded in various parts of the world, as the Inquisitr previously reported, breaching is usually induced by a prey animal or decoy on the surface. Neither a seal nor a dummy was present in the water anywhere near the spot that the white shark in the footage breached, according to White Shark Africa, leaving the animal’s motivations a mystery.

“We sometimes see great whites behave in this way,” Abbott observed. “No seal or anything, just a totally random breach. Amazing to see.”

While unusual, the footage isn’t the first photobomb attributed to a shark. Last year, a spinner shark shot from the ocean during a surfing competition in Australia, and was photographed amid a large crowd, as the Huffington Post reported. A similar situation transpired when two white sharks were filmed in the Neptune Islands, also last year, biting into each other as they breached. Sabatini’s footage, however, stands apart as quite possibly the most unexpected and unusual white shark photobomb ever filmed off South Africa.

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