Great white shark poos on cage divers

A group of cage divers were enjoying the moment a majestic great white shark swam right past - until, that is, it decided to defecate on them.

The explosive poo created a large green cloud around the divers, who were shark-watching in Guadalupe Island off the west coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, reports The Sun.

See also: Huge great white shark bites another on the head

See also: Spearfisherman catches great white shark attack on camera

The incident occurred back in 2010 and was uploaded by Shawn Coit, but has recently gone viral again, according to the Daily Mail.

The shark appears to deliberately try to spread the cloud over the divers with its tail, before taking a rather-too-close interest in the cage.

While the big yellowy-green plume is no doubt disgusting to the divers, a host of fish swarming into it appear to find it delicious.

Alistair Dove, senior scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, told LiveScience: "Snack time! Unsavoury indeed, but chunks of pre-digested food from a top-level predator's poop still contain enough useful carbon for smaller animals to make a meal of it."

Experts say that shark poo can also offer lots of opportunities for research about the animal.

Dove explained: "Faeces can tell you about what they are eating, but also a lot of other things."

The excrement contains residual DNA from intestinal cells, so scientists can get gene sequence information and possibly work out where the shark came from.

They have developed tests that use the poo to study the shark's stress and sex hormones.

Dove added: "The ability to test these without having to touch and therefore stress an animal yourself opens up several research possibilities."