Diver With Terminal Cancer Captures In Video Stingray In Melbourne Devour Giant Spider Crab
A terminal cancer patient filmed a stingray in Melbourne eat a giant spider crab. Diver PT Hirschfield originally intended to just video the spider crab moult its shell.
To capture that breathtaking scene, she dived for 137 minutes in waters at Blairgowrie Pier that was 12 degrees Celsius cold. She described the devouring scene as the “ravenous ray slurping up the newly soft-shelled crab like spaghetti marinara.”
Hirschfield provides more details about the scene in her blog. “Right from the start, three huge smooth rays had circled the ocean floor beneath the pier, waiting for the large orange soft-shelled crabs to emerge from the old, hard shells they had outgrown. Now, towards the end of the crab’s painfully slow moult into its new life, here was the largest predator of them all,” quotes Mashable.
She says that it was the first time in years of spidey diving that she spotted a giant spider crab going through the process of moulting its old shell. In early 2015, Hirschfield also filmed in the same spot a large spider crab pyramid. However, the stingray took over the spectacular show and gave it a different ending for the smaller sea creature, reports 9 News.
While filming, the large stingray shoved its nose against Hirschfield as its way of telling the diver-filmmaker to get out of its way. She pushed the ray gently back, and the deadly sea creature pressed its nose against her arm. But she refused to be intimidated by the stingray and continued filming.
It was actually a risky move on the part of the female diver because the marine animal’s long and slender tail have serrated spines that contain venom. Although stingrays normally don’t behave aggressively toward humans, it stings when accidentally stepped on by a swimmer or diver would result in a puncture wound. When the spine is withdrawn, the skin in lacerated and venom injected, according to Medicine.net.
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