That viral video during Hurricane Ian was real. But whether it showed a shark is debatable

A video that went viral on Twitter the day Hurricane Ian made landfall in Southwest Florida has been confirmed as original footage.

The video went viral when Brad Habuda from Fort Myers tweeted the video Wednesday afternoon. The video has received nearly 13 million views, despite many on the platform question the legitimacy of the video. In 2017, a fake photo of a shark swimming on a highway in Houston, Texas went viral before it was proven to be a hoax.

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But Habuda did not film the moment. And the person he credited in a follow-up tweet, Ed Bell, didn't either. According to Storyful, a media newswire used by the USA TODAY Network, Dominic Cameratta filmed the video from his property in the Devonwood community.

Video filmed in Fort Myers before Hurricane Ian made landfall

The back of Cameratta’s house faces a small lake about half a mile east of Hendry Creek, a tributary that empties into Estero Bay and that also rises and fall with the tides.

He provided Storyful with the original video, which contained metadata specifying the video was filmed at 8:04 a.m. Wednesday.

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While the video is real, whether or not a shark was caught on camera remains unclear.

Storyful says they spoke with a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who said staff were “unable to identify the animal.”

Rick Bartleson, a marine scientist at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation (SCCF), told the organization based on the shape of its dorsal fin, he was doubtful that the animal was either a shark or sawfish.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Fort Myers 'shark ' swimming video real, but may have been fish