If you find yourself in the undesirable position of being crushed by a shark's jaws, the strategies to escaping are fairly crude, according to a self-described "heavy metal" marine biologist.
"Absolutely punch it in the face, get your fingers into its gills," Yorkshire marine biologist, and heavy metal enthusiast, Tom Hunt told TVNZ's Breakfast today.
However, Mr Hunt stressed that sharks were actually extremely timid animals, and only responsible for around five of six fatalities across the globe each year.
"I jumped in the water with a four metre long tiger shark, and she just freaked out, she got so scared," Mr Hunt said.
"It was like a little girl, poor little girl, it was scared, and it took her ages to come back round and start investigating me and see what the score was."
Despite defending sharks' desire to eat humans, Mr Hunt nevertheless added that if they wanted to more often, they are more than capable of doing so.
"But I always say to people you're talking about a top ocean predator, you're talking about something at the peak of evolution, if they genuinely wanted to munch us, you're going to get munched," he said.
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