Updated

Updated · IFLScience · Aug 13

FAU Releases 4-Minute Great White Video Filmed by 10-Foot Shark as Tag Reappears After 4 Days

Updated

Updated · IFLScience · Aug 13

FAU Releases 4-Minute Great White Video Filmed by 10-Foot Shark as Tag Reappears After 4 Days

Q: How did a lost shark-cam survive a beach tractor to reveal a rare, four-minute great white encounter off the Florida coast?

It survived because the tag was built to detach from the shark, float for later recovery, and was ultimately found before being crushed — despite a beach tractor passing only inches away. Florida Atlantic University researchers had attached a fin-mounted camera to a nurse shark near Donny Boy Slipe Reef off Boynton Beach as part of a broader effort to study shark behavior from a shark’s-eye view. The tag was programmed to pop off after a set time and send a location signal from the surface. When it failed to ping on schedule, the team assumed it was lost. Four days later, the device finally transmitted, allowing the researchers to recover it from a beach. They then discovered just how close they had come to losing it for good: a beach tractor had apparently driven past within inches of the camera before it was picked up. The recovered footage turned out to be unusually valuable. It showed a great white shark, estimated at more than 10 feet long, making repeated passes around the nurse shark for about four minutes. The two sharks circled and crossed paths several times, creating what lead researcher Stephen Kajiura called a rare “shark photobomb.” Researchers said the encounter is believed to be the first underwater footage of a great white filmed by another shark. Genevieve Sylvester said the team was especially stunned that the great white appeared more than once, turning a nearly lost camera into an important behavioral record.

2 articles · Updated · IFLScience · Aug 13

Florida Atlantic University released what it says is the first underwater footage of a great white shark filmed by another shark—a roughly four-minute encounter near Boynton Beach captured in 2025.
A camera tag mounted on a nurse shark’s dorsal fin recorded the great white, estimated at at least 10 feet long, passing it multiple times around the Donny Boy Slipe artificial reef.
The tag was collecting video and 3D acceleration data for shark-behavior research, but it failed to transmit its location and was feared lost before pinging again after four days.
Researchers recovered the device from a nearby beach, where tractor tire tracks had missed it by inches, preserving footage the team said offered a rare shark’s-eye view of interspecies interaction.
The find highlights how FAU’s fin-mounted camera program—originally used on local species such as nurse sharks, lemon sharks, hammerheads and blacktips—can capture unexpected behavior in southern Florida waters.