Enormous Mako Shark Stomach Dissected

Two shortfin mako sharks, which are fast-moving and streamlined fish. They propel themselves through the water with short strokes of their thick, powerful tails. (Image credit: Credit: Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Service)

What do mako sharks eat? To find out, you have to look inside their stomachs.

Shark scientist Antonella Preti recently dissected the largest mako shark stomach she's ever encountered — and she's seen a lot of shark stomachs. To date, Preti has dissected more than 2,000 swordfish and shark stomachs, including 200 from makos, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), where Preti works.

It's important to know what sharks eat because they are an important part of the food chain. As apex predators, they keep populations of midlevel predators like grouper in check and eat sick and old prey species, keeping their populations healthier; when the sharks disappear, negative changes can ripple through the food web. But as many as 100 million sharks are killed each year for their meat and their fins, which are made into shark-fin soup. This dish is prized as a delicacy in China, despite evidence that it can contain high levels of toxins like mercury. [8 Weird Facts About Sharks]

Preti told LiveScience that the weirdest things she's found in a shark stomach include "a bullet, 24 pork steaks wrapped in paper and a soggy salad."

A commercial fisherman off the coast of Southern California caught the mako shark in question, donating its organs to science. The shark weighed 1,323 pounds (600 kg) and was 12 feet long (3.7 meters).

Preti and her colleague Lisa Natanson, both shark experts, answered questions via Twitter today about the animals. Find their answers @NOAAFisheries or search for entries tagged #sharkweekchat.

For the past 25 years, the Discovery Channel has hosted "Shark Week" annually. The kickoff to this year's installment stirred some controversy over a mockumentary about the extinct, ancient, giant shark, Megalodon.

Shark scientist Antonella Preti recently dissected the largest mako shark stomach she's even encountered, in order to find out what these giants of the ocean eat. (Image credit: NOAA Fisheries)

Email Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebookor Google+. Article originally on LiveScience.com.

Douglas Main loves the weird and wonderful world of science, digging into amazing Planet Earth discoveries and wacky animal findings (from marsupials mating themselves to death to zombie worms to tear-drinking butterflies) for Live Science. Follow Doug on Google+.