Great White Shark Gets Terrifyingly Close and Bites This Fishing Boat

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Great White sharks aren't exactly the snuggliest fish in the sea. In fact, they're responsible for one-third of the total shark attacks worldwide and have been known to not do well in captivity. Great Whites, being the powerful, fear-striking, sometimes-massive descendants of prehistoric monsters that they are, should not go underestimated. That's what makes close brushes like the one in the video above so intense.

The Australian party in this small motorboat was seemingly enjoying a fun filled fishing trip out in waters more than a mile off the coast of Port Macdonnell, South Australia, when this particularly curious shark came to investigate. The video shows captures their expletive-filled reactions while the 14.7-foot-long predatory fish circles around the small fishing boat, presumably in search of any scraps of fish that they might have caught or just looking into what this large mass floating in its waters might be. The shark, for its part, looks calm and relatively docile in the video, and it reportedly circled the boat for about 10 minutes and nibbled the side of it before being on its way.

"It wasn't aggravated or anything like that -- it was pretty placid," Andrew Russell, who was in the boat, told local newspaper The Advertiser after the fact.

His fishing partner, Dani McKinnon, confirmed that it bit the motor. “It was just so big -- it was like a bus,” she said. “We were just in awe.”

Eventually the Great White grew bored, flicked the boat with its tail, and swam away.

h/t Mashable

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Eric Vilas-Boas is a writer and editor at Thrillist. Follow him @e_vb_.