For years, a temperature reading from a lost shark tag off Western Australia was presented as proof of an unidentified ocean predator. The number was real. The interpretation was not. Between 2017 and 2025, researchers in South Africa, Mexico and the Northwest Atlantic identified what actually hunts great white sharks — using necropsies, drone footage, dorsal-fin catalogues and a satellite tag that kept transmitting from inside a predator's gut. One case is still unresolved, and it is the famous one.

Shark Alpha: 9 ft female, tagged November 2003, tag recovered off Bremer Bay, Western Australia — no paper, no carcass
26 °C is not a monster's body temperature. It is the published stomach temperature of a great white shark (Goldman, 1997)
Gansbaai, February–June 2017: five white shark carcasses, four with the liver removed, orca tooth impressions in the pectoral fins
Mossel Bay, 18 June 2023: one adult male orca, "Starboard", kills and eviscerates a 2.5 m white shark alone in under two minutes (Towner et al., African Journal of Marine Science, 2024)
Southwest of Bermuda, March 2021: a pop-off tag on a pregnant porbeagle reads 22 °C for four days at 600 m (Anderson et al., Frontiers in Marine Science, 2024)
An adult male orca's daily energy need is roughly one white shark liver

Sources and further reading in the comments.

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