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Professional swimmers have been known to eat 10,000 calories a day, but even putting away that much food pales in comparison to a tiger shark, which can out-eat and out-swim anyone, regardless of whether they are in the Olympics.

Tiger sharks have been recorded to swim nearly 8,500 kilometres in a year, and to get the energy for such an epic swim, the apex predators will eat just about anything, from turtles to dolphins to plastic bottles. Failing to get any chow, the sharks simply fast until they find something juicy to munch on.

These all-or-nothing eating habits have dubbed the tiger shark ‘the garbage cans of the ocean’.

Perhaps feeling a bit jealous of these swimmers’ abilities in the water, ultra-swimmer Ross Edgley attempted to out-eat a tiger shark by fasting, then eating over 40,000 calories in one day (a normal day for sharks when the buffet is stocked).

“Shark vs. Ross Edgley,” is part of National Geographic’s Sharkfest and sees the ultra-marathon swimmer go up against a variety of different species to see how he’d fare against their speed, agility, and stomachs.

As can be expected, Edgley didn’t fare well in speed, achieving only about 25% that of a mako shark. And for agility, he tried jumping completely out of the water like a great white but only made it about 75% of the way.

 

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Edgley was never going to out-swim or out-manoeuvre a shark, so as a burly ultra-marathon sportsman with a huge appetite, he turned to the calories.

“I thought I was going to do pretty well,” Edgley told Business Insider of the tiger shark challenge.

“I can put away quite a bit of food.” He’s been known to eat 15,000 calories a day while training for long-distance swimming events.

Edgley doesn’t feel too bad though, and says it has been a fun way of getting people interested in sharks.

“That’s what’s been amazing, seeing on social media kids just going, ‘Oh my God, he tried to eat like a tiger shark. He had seven litres of custard.'”

Edgley has been passionate about shark conservation since a shark unexpectedly joined him on a 157-day swim he took around Great Britain in 2018. He hopes his exploits help people fall in love with the animals.

And he wouldn’t mind trying to keep up with even more shark species. “I’ll put my goggles on again and find some custards.”

[source:businessinsider]