Something fishy about smelly shark on the N train

Subway shark! Subway shark!

There were no such warnings on the Queens-bound N train after a small but menacing-looking gray shark turned up dead beneath the seats early Wednesday.

Instead, the few passengers on board scurried to other cars after a getting a smelly dose of Shark Week on the subway.

"I was pretty shocked at first," wrote Brandon Sanchez, 20, a New York University student who lives in East Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, in an email. "This is definitely the weirdest thing I've seen happen on the subway."

Sanchez said he saw the shark after getting on board at Canal Street at about midnight.

But seeing a dead shark was not what made him hop to a neighboring car. On a subway system known for the occasional ripe odor, it was the smell that did it, he said. He got off at Union Square, but not before snapping a picture.

An MTA spokeswoman said a conductor got word of the shark at about 12:30 a.m. A supervisor eventually disposed of it, and the car was cleaned, she said.

The MTA did not know how the shark got on the train and had no plans to ask, spokesman Kevin Ortiz wrote on Twitter. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, he tweeted that he was getting "unconfirmed reports that the shark was headed home after a night of partying in Coney Island."

Juan D. Cano, 31, first thought it was a fake -- a promotional tie-in with one of those shark-related cable series.

"It's 'Shark Week,' it's 'Sharknado' -- somebody's got to be doing something," Cano said as he stared at the prone predator in the car.

Cano soon realized this was no cable promotion.

"It was a really potent, fishy smell," Cano said. "You can't fake that smell."