What it's like to be bitten by a cookiecutter shark

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What it’s like to be bitten by a cookiecutter shark

The cookiecutter shark only maxes out at about 22 inches long and until recently, there’s never been a case of one attacking humans, but what the cookiecutter lacks in size, it makes up for in the nastiness of its bite. The reason it’s called the cookiecutter shark is because its neat row of teeth (above) carves out a near-perfect little circle of flesh as if you’ve been attacked by a madman with a cookie cutter.

A recent paper in the journal Pacific Science however describes the first scientifically documented attack on a human by the tiny cookiecutter. In 2009, distance swimmer Mike Spalding was attacked off the coast of Hawai’i. Explain the authors:

The victim was an accomplished long-distance swimmer attempting to cross the Alenuihaha Channel on a straight-line track from ‘Upolu Point on the island of Hawai‘i to Kaupo, Maui […] The total distance was 47.5 km, and crossing time was expected to take 16-20 hrs.

At 2003 hrs, the victim suddenly felt a very sharp pain on his lower chest, and assumed it was a triggerfish bite. The sensation was instantaneous and localized, like a pin prick, and felt like a bite from a very small mouth. The victim yelped and swam over to the kayak, turned off the bow light, and was in the process of getting into the kayak with his legs vertical and “egg-beatering” to maintain position when he felt something bite his left calf. The time interval between the two bites was less than 15 seconds. The sensation of the bite to the leg was slightly more prolonged (but still very quick, less than a second), involved some pressure, and was less painful than the chest bite. […]

Inspection of the wounds in the emergency room showed a superficial C-shaped wound on the mid/lower sternum […] and a circular open wound of the posterior lower left leg […] The leg wound was located at the junction of the middle and lower third of the calf. It represented a near circle and measured approximately 10 cm in diameter and 4 cm in depth.