Missing Scot's severed hand found inside culled shark

A holidaymaker from the United Kingdom had no idea that her holiday would end with her having to identify the wedding ring on her husband's severed hand. The 44-year-old man who went missing while swimming in the Hermitage Lagoon, off the Saint-Gilles coast of the French territory. Even though search and rescue teams were unable to locate the man's body, a severed hand was recovered from a shark's stomach.

The French territory island close to Madagascar has multiple species of sharks that swim close to the beaches. Encounters between sharks and tourists often end up going horribly wrong. In the case of the man from Scotland, the killer could have been a shark.

On Saturday, the unnamed man had gone swimming in the lagoon. After a long time, he failed to return to the shore. His wife, who was on the holiday with him, reported him missing. Fearing that the man had drowned, a massive search was launched. Helicopters and boats combed the area. Divers searched the coral reef for a body. Sniffer dogs combed the coastline for his scent.

The only sign of the man's whereabouts came when island authorities culled five sharks swimming close to tourists. The authorities felt that the sharks were a threat to the tourist visiting the island so they were killed as a safety measure.

Once the sharks were killed, scientists performed post-mortems on the bodies. According to the Mirror, from the stomach of a 10 feet long Tiger shark scientists found a severed hand. The undigested hand still had a wedding ring on one of the fingers.

The hand has been sent for a DNA test to prove if it belonged to the Scotsman who went missing. The man's family is convinced the hand belongs to him since his wife identified the wedding ring found on the finger.

It is unclear if the man had been attacked by the shark or if the shark had fed on the man's corpse after he had drowned. The rest of the man's remains are yet to be located.