Turducken Of The Sea Photo Goes Viral

A crazy photo of a shark dubbed the Turducken Of The Sea has gone viral.

The Turducken of the Sea is a sand tiger shark that was caught with bait and had a smaller shark in its mouth. The fish-within-a-shark-within-a-shark is similar to duck-within-a-chicken-within-a-turkey, Turducken...and thus, Tuducken of the sea happened.

Scientists were catching previously-tagged sand tiger sharks and pulled in a line with a bait fish that was eaten by a three-foot shark called a dogfish, which was then swallowed by the tiger shark.

Researchers from the University of Delaware's Ocean Exploration Remote Sensing Biogeography Lab (ORB Lab) made the discovery.

On their Facebook page, they said, "We caught one large female on our first line Friday, but we were not expecting to catch her like this!"

They added, "Thus unlucky smooth dogfish couldn't resist the menhaden used as bait and unfortunately fell victim to one of the top predators in the bay."

And, of course, the photo quickly made social media rounds, with references to Shark Week.

What a crazy picture! Yahoo is calling it the "turducken of the sea"! lol pic.twitter.com/9Dmp1vL1D4

— Sally Jessy Raphael (@SJRaphael) August 14, 2013

"This picture is iconic. I bet it will become world famous," Facebook user Mtsandzi Welive Lakhe wrote.

She was right.

"Is it still Shark Week?" tweeted @VickiFry.

The research took place in Delaware Bay, where both species are common. The dogfish shark in the photo died, but the sand tiger shark was healthy and was released back into the bay.

Sand tiger sharks are cousins of the Great White shark but not related to tiger sharks, confusingly. They live around the world, including the East Coast of North and South America.

And the one in question made quite a photo.

"If you think you had a bad day, then think of this dogfish," tweeted @DavidCammegh.

 "It's a dogfish eat dogfish world," quipped JP Trostle on the ORB Lab's Facebook page.