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Great white sharks are voracious predators, and it seems they even set their sights on the biggest fish in the sea. Two vertebrae recovered from the stomach of a 4.5-metre-long white shark caught 50 years ago show that it had been feeding on a whale shark, and a big one at that. It was around 8.5 metres long, the size of the vertebrae suggests (see image below).

at Columbus State University in Georgia, who identified the bones, says that juvenile whale sharks sometimes fall prey to other sharks. There have been unconfirmed reports of white sharks attacking sub-adult whale sharks, he says, but this is the first good evidence that adults might be targeted as well.

He is not surprised, though, to find bits of a full-sized whale shark in a white shark鈥檚 belly. 鈥淲hite sharks will chew just about anything they can get in their mouths,鈥� he says. And their serrated teeth are well suited to cutting through flesh and skin.

What we don鈥檛 know is whether this white shark was attacking a live whale shark or feeding on a carcass. It was caught near a whaling station off the coast of Western Australia, where white sharks did scavenge on dead whales.

, head of the Massachusetts Shark Research Program, says his money would be on scavenging. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e well known for scavenging large whales, and I imagine they would also take advantage of other large dead fish,鈥� he says.

And although they aren鈥檛 afraid to take on large animals like elephant seals or sea lions, white sharks tend not to target things much bigger than themselves, he adds. They also prefer to feed on the rich blubber of whales and seals, so whale sharks might be less appetising to them.

Either way, say both Newbrey and Skomal, the finding helps fill an important gap in our knowledge of what white sharks eat, which remains somewhat mysterious. 鈥淎s long as we鈥檝e been studying white sharks, we still don鈥檛 have a handle on what their diet is,鈥� says Newbrey.

Read more: The world鈥檚 biggest whopper; Rights versus bites: The great shark culling debate