A HUGE 2.7-metre-long great white shark was eaten by an even bigger “mystery sea monster”, according to scientists.

Researchers had tagged the healthy shark to track its movements as part of a study, but were shocked when the tracking device washed up on a beach in Australia four months later, just four kilometres away.

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Data captured on the device showed there was a rapid temperature rise along with a sudden, sharp 580-metres plunge.

The researchers believe the data proves it was eaten by something much bigger, saying the temperatures recorded indicate it went inside another animal’s digestive system.

The only theory they have so far was that it was gobbled up by a “colossal cannibal great white shark”.

The case is detailed in an upcoming documentary by the Smithsonian Institute, called the Hunt for the Super Predator, which draws from an earlier ABC documentary The Search for the Ocean’s Super Predator.

“When I was first told about the data that came back from the tag that was on the shark, I was absolutely blown away,” filmmaker Dave Riggs says in the documentary.

“The question that not only came to my mind but everyone’s mind who was involved was, ‘what did that?’ It was obviously eaten. What’s gonna eat a shark that big? What could kill a [9-foot] great white?”

The documentary will air in the US on June 25.

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Take a closer look a sharks Staff at Sydney's Australian Museum reveal Great White and Goblin Shark specimens preserved in formaldehyde.

Originally published as The mystery of ‘sharkzilla’