Matt Garrett captured the video above of an adult white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) spotted about 25 miles southeast of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. According to an NBC report Garrett, from Boston, was fishing with friends when the shark showed up and began circling the boat. Garrett says the shark stayed in the area for about 20 minutes.

While white shark sightings off of the coast of North Carolina are not unheard of, it is fairly rare for sightings in the area to be documented on video. Tracking data indicates that the waters off North Carolina are along Atlantic white sharks migratory routes. In the spring and summer months white sharks have been documented traveling north along the East Coast from Florida waters to the cooler waters off New England, and then returning south in the fall and winter months.

According to a statement from Paul Barrington, the shark involved in the Wrighstville Beach incident was erroneously identified as a sand tiger shark.

Contrary to statements made in a WECT.com feature on the recent shark attack at Wrightsville Beach, Paul Barrington of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher was quoted today in a Lumina News article as saying…

"A lot of the media has so far erroneously identified it as a sand tiger shark. It takes a tremendous amount of forensics to determine specifically what type of shark it is."

The WECT.com feature stated that Barrington believed that "a sand-tiger shark could have been the suspect" in the Wrightsville Beach incident. However, Barrington’s recent quotes seem to dispute that notion.

George Burgess stated in the Lumina News article that the species of shark involved will likely remain a mystery. Burgess and Barrington confirmed the shark was approximately 4′ in length. Barrington’s list of suspected species include the small sharpnose shark (the species with presently the largest population in coastal NC), the dusky, the sandbar, the lemon, the black tip or the spinner shark, according to the Lumina News article.

According to WECT.com, Paul Barrington, of the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher, believes the shark suspected of biting a 13-year-old girl at Wrightsville Beach, NC might be sand tiger shark (aka grey nurse shark or ragged tooth shark). Kendall Parker sustained a single bite to the arm, while she was in waist-deep water on Saturday. Her injuries required 40-stitches, but she is expected to make a full-recovery.

The sand tiger shark (Carcharias taurus) is generally considered to be “docile” and non-threatening to humans. A sand tiger shark’s diet consists primarily of fish. Barrington mentions in the interview above that with a the number of bait fish in the water a “hit-and-run attack” could be a case of mistaken identity.

The temptation to throw in a Jaws reference was just too great for WECT-6, as the video segment is accompanied with Jaws theme music.