Who could be the real culprit behind the Beihai wounding incident?

A few days ago, at Qiaogang Beach in Guangxi, several tourists were attacked by "unknown fish" and left with horrific wounds.

Maybe you haven’t been deterred from going to the beach by warnings about jellyfish in the past, but will this “fear of the unknown” stop you from going into the sea again?

The whole network was in shock, rumors were rife, and now it is not even clear how many people were injured, and how many of the wounded photos circulating online were actually taken at the scene is also questionable. Some said only three people were injured, while others said seven, more than ten, or even more than twenty. However, in the movie "The Meg", the two megalodons together did not eat more than twenty people, so the rumor of more than twenty people is naturally very unlikely.

If rumors and speculations continue like this, I'm afraid that all the fish guessed could be compiled into a fish encyclopedia of the Beibu Gulf. We would also like to speculate on the "real culprit" based on factors such as the wound and the region, to help everyone recognize some creatures that need to be careful of and avoid some unnecessary worries.

Pictures of the wounds in this incident

Deadly "Megalodon"?

When most people learned about the unidentified creature attacking people, the first thing they thought of was the shark . Indeed, as one of the most dangerous large fish, coupled with the "exaggeration" of popular culture such as horror movies, many people can be said to be "terrified of sharks", and in fact it could really be this one.
Guangxi's coastal areas have always been home to many large sharks, and some sharks even choose to breed here. Fishing boats operating in the Beibu Gulf often catch juveniles of several large sharks, which is enough to illustrate this point. The most "notorious" of these is the ** lowfin reef shark (** Carcharhinus leucas), also known as the bull shark.

Adult fish are about 3 meters long and live in tropical and subtropical coastal areas. Image source: Wikipedia

So far, among the shark attacks on humans recorded worldwide, the lowfin shark has caused 121 incidents, 26 of which were fatal, a record second only to the great white shark and tiger shark. The Beibu Gulf, where the incident occurred, is also home to the lowfin shark. I have collected some jawbones of lowfin sharks in the market in Beihai. The number is not large, but they silently announce their existence.

A bite mark from a whitefin shark. ©NOLA.com

In April 2022, some photography enthusiasts also photographed a lowfin reef shark foraging in the waters of Weizhou Island in Beihai, and the shooting location was less than 40km away from the beach where the incident occurred. All this evidence seems to suggest that the lowfin reef shark is likely to be the real culprit of the attack.

Among the injuries of the victims exposed this time, some were obvious cuts , and the general shape of the wounds was similar to shark bites. In addition, according to one of the victims of the attack, he seemed to be hit by something a few seconds before he felt the attack, "It felt like hitting a stone", and this detail is hard not to associate with sharks. We can even boldly imagine that an inexperienced young lowfin shark accidentally broke into the crowded shallow seashore, perhaps out of fear of the noisy environment around it, or mistook human limbs for fat fish, and bit one tourist after another...

Wait a minute, although sharks are a major suspect, we should not simply attribute this tragedy to a shark attack, because there are still many doubts that do not conform to the normal behavior of sharks:

Some reasons not to be a shark

1. According to another victim, he seemed to have stepped on something soft when the incident happened. The skin of several large sharks suspected of attacking people is covered with rough, hard and blunt scales, which feel sandy to the touch, which is obviously not consistent with the touch of sharks;

2. Another victim whose hand was bitten claimed that he escaped after he pried open the fish's mouth with his hands, but he did not know the fish that attacked him. It is not easy to pry open a shark's mouth by brute force, and the victim insisted that he "did not know the fish that attacked him." If it was indeed a shark, even if the victim could not accurately determine what kind of shark attacked him, he could at least lock it into the general category of sharks, and he should not say "I don't know it";

3. The beach where the incident occurred was crowded with people, and the water depth at the place where the victim was attacked was not deep enough to cover the entire body of a person. Sharks are shrewd predators and usually do not use such complex waters as their foraging grounds. They may not even be able to escape unscathed here;

4. According to eyewitnesses, at least dozens of people were bitten within a few minutes at the scene of the incident. This is obviously unlikely to be caused by the same predatory fish. It should at least be a school of fish of a certain size. However, sharks such as the bluefin shark that can cause serious wounds like the one shown in the picture do not move in groups in most cases.

To sum up, although sharks are highly suspected, there are also some issues in this incident that are difficult to explain with the current knowledge of shark behavior. It is hoped that further investigation will reveal more details about this incident.

As for another "suspect" hotly discussed on the Internet , the cigar shark (Isistius brasiliensis), I think it can be completely ruled out.

It looks delicate, but it is also a fierce fish. It can use its mouth to stick to big fish and suck until the flesh is torn off. Image source: fishesofaustralia.

Dama sharks usually live in deep waters with a depth of 300 to 1000m. Obviously, they will not appear in the Beibu Gulf where the maximum water depth is only 50m. This is like looking for snow leopards in a tropical monsoon forest that is only a few hundred meters above sea level.

There are only four cases of damselfish shark attacks on humans worldwide. The incidents occurred in deep water areas with a depth of more than hundreds of meters near the sites, and the victims were attacked when crossing open waters at night. Damselfish sharks only float to the surface to find food at night and return to the abyss during the day.

In addition, the bite marks of the Damo shark are regular circles , leaving a large wound area with clean edges, which is obviously inconsistent with the wound shape exposed at the time of the attack.

Among bony fish, could it be this?

Considering the fishing conditions in China, the fish that appear on the beach and bite people are more likely to be some kind of bony fish . Bony fish are often not as large and ferocious as sharks, but they can also cause considerable harm to humans under certain circumstances.

Many people have heard that pufferfish and triggerfish will actively attack humans, so they believe that they are the culprits of this incident, but triggerfish are the least likely. Pufferfish and triggerfish are both famous biological shell crackers. Pufferfish have four sharp tooth plates in their mouths, while triggerfish have sharp fangs in their mouths. They can easily crush shells or crabs, and can also bite off human fingers .

Redtooth triggerfish fangs

When threatened, pufferfish and triggerfish will take the initiative to attack the enemy, but both pufferfish and triggerfish have small mouths, and the damage they cause depends on excellent bite force rather than tearing. If bitten by a pufferfish or triggerfish, the wound left will be small, usually a circular cut, and sometimes the skin and flesh are completely cut off from it.

In the pictures circulated online, neither the horrific lacerations nor the rows of teeth marks have anything in common with a pufferfish attack, so pufferfish cannot be the culprits.

Another fish that can be ruled out is the needlefish (family Belonidae). There are many needlefish in the North Sea, and although the rows of tooth marks look like the style of needlefish, needlefish will never bite like this and have no tearing ability.

The spotted-tail needlefish (Strongylura strongylura) is one of the most common needlefish in the Beibu Gulf. They often appear in shallow waters less than one meter deep. Image source: Wikipedia

When caught by a predator, such as an osprey, the needlefish will try to turn its head and bite back, but this counterattack is generally futile against feathered predators. Image source: cdn.shutterbug.com

Needlefish are very timid and will flee in panic if frightened. They will not bite unless caught. Needlefish are indeed a very dangerous type of fish, but this is not because they bite, but because a panicked needlefish may plunge into a person's body. In waters with a high density of tourists such as seaside bathing beaches, the running needlefish are indeed very dangerous. They can easily pierce a person's chest, neck or even head, but that is another matter.

Furthermore, needlefish do not like such lively scenes and will try their best to avoid places full of people.

There is also the naked eel (Gymnothorax spp). Deep in their mouths is a structure called the "pharyngeal jaw", which is known as the second mouth of the naked eel. When the naked eel opens its mouth to hunt, the pharyngeal jaw will extend forward, grab the prey and drag it backwards, so it is difficult to escape after being bitten by the naked eel. At the same time, the naked eel will also rotate and knot in order to tear the prey into pieces . Their teeth are very sharp, and coupled with terrifying brute force, they can cause huge damage.

I have been bitten by a naked eel. It was just a scratch from one of its teeth, but a long, deep wound appeared on my hand and it bled profusely. Even with the stitches, it left a long scar. And this was just a naked eel half a meter long. Think about those three-meter-long naked eels and Javan naked eels!

This large yellow-lipped moray eel (Gymnothorax flavimarginatus) feeds on a grey shark. Photo: mikesevernsdiving.com

Naked-breasted eels are fully capable of causing such lacerations, and their capabilities are even far more than that. However, if you are bitten by a naked-breasted eel, it is impossible that there will be only the clean tooth marks like in this incident. Naked-breasted eels have small and dense teeth. If you just bite once and then let go, the tooth marks caused will also be small, shallow and dense.

The beach itself is not a habitat that naked eels like. They like to hide in the reefs and will not leave too far . Unless someone has released naked eels into the sea before the incident, it is unlikely that naked eels will appear here.

Many people also suspect that it is the purple snapper (Lutjanus argentimaculatus), a ferocious carnivorous fish. On the beach of the seaside bathing beach, young purple snappers often dart around among the rocks. Could there be strong and powerful adult purple snappers lurking in the deeper water? This is possible, but the pair of fangs at the front of the purple snapper's mouth and the fangs at the back are a certain distance apart, so they cannot bite out such tooth marks. It is also questionable whether they can tear people like that.

Purple snapper. Image source: Wikipedia

Most importantly, do purple snappers really bite people? After all, purple snappers are frequent visitors to seaside bathing beaches and are also important farmed fish. If they are really so ferocious, people should not have been bitten until now.

After eliminating many possibilities, suspicion fell on the giant barracuda (Sphyraena barracuda) and its close relative the striped barracuda (Sphyraena jello). These two large barracudas, which can grow up to 1.5 to 2 meters in size, are very common in the North Sea and are often caught near the coast. They often ambush prey on diving reefs. The giant barracuda sometimes even almost rushes onto the beach in order to hunt . Their slender bodies allow them to move freely in shallow water even when they are quite long, which increases the probability of them encountering tourists.

Image source of the bigmouth bass: reeflifesurvey.

Both the spotted snapper and the giant snapper will live in groups, but the spotted snapper prefers to move in groups. Image source: ARKive

Large sharks are ferocious predators. The one that ate Nemo's mother at the beginning of "Finding Nemo" was a shark, and the giant shark is particularly ferocious . Around the world, there are frequent reports of attacks by giant sharks. When they feel threatened, they may launch a fierce attack on humans.

If you hadn’t been educated on the shark in “Finding Nemo”, you might have thought that all the villains you saw as a child were sharks.

If the wound on the front of the thigh is indeed a penetrating wound, then it was most likely pierced by the fangs at the front of the jawbone, while the rows of tooth marks on the back may have come from the palatine teeth at the back of the mouth, which can cut through the flesh like a blade.

The giant barbarian is never afraid to attack large prey. It will use its fangs to pierce and fix large prey , and then cut it open with its palatine teeth through a series of chewing and shaking of the head. There are observations showing that a 2-meter-long giant barbarian can cut a 1-meter-long yellowtail in half. You can imagine what it would be like if a giant barbarian of this size bit a human.

A giant trevally torn in half by a giant squid. Image source: i.kinja-img.com

Of course, this conclusion about catfish is not perfect, but considering all the information, catfish or sharks are still more reasonable choices, and catfish are more likely to appear in such an environment than sharks.

Of course, we can't rule out the possibility of a "gang crime" - is it possible that the incident was not caused by the same type of fish? For example, a few released naked eels caused the lacerations on the tourists, while fish with sharp teeth such as bream and lowfin sharks caused the cuts and penetrations on the tourists? In fact, this possibility cannot be ruled out, but if it is true, this beach has suddenly become too dangerous.

At this point, the fish suspects have been analyzed, and there is only one possible suspect left, but it is not a fish, or even an animal, but man-made - glass .

The glass in the sea may come from tourists, fishing boats, or landfill garbage. If there are a lot of large pieces of broken glass on the seabed, they may also scratch people like this, but it is difficult to say that the tooth marks in the picture were caused by glass.

If it is glass, the good news is that there are no unknown fish that will bite people. The bad news is that the glass at the bottom of the water is difficult to clean, and this beach may not be suitable for swimming for quite a long time to come.

If natural disasters cannot be avoided, we should at least try to reduce man-made disasters. Image source: l.rgbimg.com

At the end of the article, let's learn something practical. Don't skip it, the following content may save your life at a critical moment.

How to reduce the chance of being attacked by a shark while swimming

1. Do not swim in unfamiliar natural waters. Please try to choose a formal bathing beach with infrastructure. There are many hidden dangers in natural waters with few people, and even if you are in danger, it may be difficult for you to get effective treatment in time;

2. Do not swim at dawn, dusk or night, as these are the peak feeding times for sharks;

3. Do not swim alone, try to swim in groups, as sharks tend to attack solitary prey;

4. Try not to swim in open waters too far from the shoreline. When swimming at the beach, do not cross the shark net to explore unknown waters. Once you cross the shark net, there will be no obstacles between you and the sharks.

5. Do not swim in the waters near docks and garbage disposal plants. The smell of waste (especially fish blood and fish viscera) in these places will attract sharks, so the possibility of being attacked by sharks here is very high;

6. Do not wear shiny items such as metal jewelry and watches when swimming in the sea. Some sharks have good eyesight and can see the light reflected by these items. They may mistake them for fish scales and attack swimmers.

7. Don’t swim with an injury. Although predatory sharks prefer the smell of fish blood, they can still smell you and may mistake you for easy prey.

8. Don’t urinate while standing in deep water, as sharks can also sense the smell of urine.

9. When swimming or diving, try not to be in the middle of large schools of fish. Sharks will be attracted by large schools of fish and attack them, and sometimes they will accidentally injure humans who stray into them.

10. Try not to bring pets (such as dogs, etc.) into the water. The splashes caused by pets when swimming will also attract the attention of sharks;

11. Try not to conduct spear hunting activities in waters where large predatory sharks are present. Sharks can detect the electrical signals generated by the dying struggles of other fish and respond quickly to them. If a shark does catch up and starts to snatch the fish from your spear gun, please give up your prey immediately. Any unnecessary resistance may anger the shark and trigger further fierce attacks. In addition, many cases of shark attacks on humans occur during diving and hunting. Once these ferocious fish sense danger, they may launch a fierce attack.

12. Don't get too close to sharks when diving. Try not to touch them. What you consider to be an intimate act may be a pure provocation in the eyes of sharks. If they are enraged, it will be a big trouble.

13. Pay attention to the shark's "body language" when diving with sharks. Predatory sharks such as the blacktail shark (Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos) have a strong sense of territory. When they feel their territory is invaded, they will first use body language to warn the intruder. If the intruder ignores this warning signal, the shark will quickly enter the attack state;

Schematic diagram of the normal swimming posture of the black-tailed reef shark (right) and the warning posture before attacking (left). If the intruder "does not accept the toast, then the black-tailed reef shark will launch a real fierce attack. ©Wikipedia

14. Don’t be naive to think that only large sharks will attack humans. Slow-moving small and medium-sized sharks such as the wobbegong (Orectolobus maculatus) and the nurse shark (Ginglymostoma cirratum) can also bite people when provoked, so don’t be careless about this. It is better to be careful than to be in trouble.

15. Do not feed large carnivorous fish, including sharks, naked eels, and giant catfish, in the sea, so as to prevent them from establishing a connection between humans and food. In the case of the green naked eel attacking a person mentioned above, the naked eel obviously connected humans with food. When it saw a person, it took the initiative to swim out, circled around the person, and finally bit the person. The author of the paper speculated that the naked eel may have been fed by humans before, so it believed that humans would bring food;

Before the results of the investigation are actually announced, all discussions can only be considered speculation. In any case, we should always maintain awe of the ocean - after all, it is not our home ground. Facing the unknown, being cautious and respectful is often the best choice. For domestic beaches, such attacks are not normal . If it is caused by fish, then the perpetrator is likely to have returned to deep water and is difficult to catch. Perhaps it will never return to the beach where it once caused trouble.

However, these big fish are not the only threats we need to pay attention to at the seaside. They are even the least likely of all potential threats. At the seaside, the real harm to people is some poisonous creatures, such as jellyfish, siphonophores and hydras . Even the highly poisonous Portuguese man-of-war often appears on the beaches of our country, not to mention the daunting blue-ringed octopus , which can occasionally be encountered when going to the sea.

Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish on Shenzhen Dapeng Beach. Source: Guangming Online

At the beach, we must keep in mind this principle: do not touch anything you don't recognize , otherwise once you get stung or bitten, it will be too late to regret.

I hope that order can be restored to the beaches affected by the incident as soon as possible. I also hope that everyone will pay attention to safety when playing at the beach and not ruin their good mood and good time because of an accident.

Planning and production

Source: Bowuzai (ID: bowuzai)

Author: Dada Luolan

Editor: Yang Yaping