FISH TALE: Kids who found the shark (above) at Coney Island said pranksters ran off with it. They were shocked to see pictures of it on an N-train (inset). (
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The subway shark mystery has been solved.
The fare-beating fish whose rotting corpse rode the rails from Coney Island to Queens Tuesday washed up on the beach that day and was eventually taken on the N-train by a Brooklyn man who found it lying next to the Cyclone roller coaster.
Event planner Alicia Vicino, 41, said she and her kids were splashing around in the Coney surf when the fish appeared on the sand.
“My kids are big on sharks and Shark Week,” she said. “They were freaking out. We took pictures with the shark.”
Her neighbor’s daughter, Alessandra, even picked it up. “She was the only one that had the courage to hold the shark,” said her dad, Domenick, who preferred not to give his last name.
Vicino said then that a group of 20-somethings thought it was cool and ran off with it.
“We all thought it was really strange that they wanted to take it with them,” she said.
Soon after, Chris Landros, a plumber from Bensonhurst, found the fish carcass next to The Cyclone roller coaster.
“It seemed clean. I picked it up and took it,” Landros said.
The 31-year-old Brooklyn man said that he thought the fish was such a fine specimen, he decided to take it home to study it.
“A shark is a beautiful creature,” he said. “I’m actually going to study this after this, I want to go to school for this.”
In order to display the dead shark in public, Landros decided to take his new finned friend for a ride on public transit.
“I wanted people to see what a beautiful animal it is,” he said. “I brought it on at New Utrecht. I rode it four, five stops.”
He eventually left it on the N train for everyone to enjoy. And he was upset when he found out that the MTA had discarded his prized fish — even though some said it stunk to high heaven.
“They should have left it on the subway as a memento,” he said. “Some people got upset. It’s already dead.”
The beachgoers who originally found the shark were shocked when images of their Coney companion went viral.
When Vicino and her neighbors saw the pictures of the shark on the subway they were sure it was the same one.
“It’s 100 percent the same shark,” said Domenick. “The poor shark was on the subway!
Marine expert Chris Paparo — manager of the Marine Science Center at Stony Brook Southampton — also thinks that the female dogfish is the same shark.
Subway riders spotted he dogfish shark underneath a subway bench early Wednesday — and someone posed it with a Metro Card, Red Bull, and cigarettes.
Meanwhile, sharkmania continued yesterday with the announcement that the Sharknado sequel — set in New York City — will be creatively titled “Sharknado 2: The Second One.”