Visitors to Auckland tourist attraction Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World were given a treat on Tuesday - a fishy lesson on how to deliver babies via Caesarean section.
Visitors found baby sharks spilling from a large gaping wound in a female shark and told staff.
A large shark had apparently taken a bite into the female school shark's stomach to deliver the four babies, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported.
Kelly Tarlton's aquarist Fiona Davies said it was common for sharks to take chunks out of each other, even in the wild, but she had never heard of anything like this.
"It had to bite a certain part to let them out and do it without killing the babies or the mother."
She said the unusual delivery had probably saved the baby sharks' lives.
If there had been a natural birth, the babies would have been eaten by adult sharks and stingrays before staff could rescue them.
The young sharks have been put in a "nursery" before they were released into the wild.
The mother shark was doing "surprising well" and was being monitored.
She was now back in the main tank in the oceanarium, marketing
manager Tessa Lawrence said.
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