Goblin shark

The goblin shark is a rare shark.

It lives in the deep, dark sea. The shark has pink skin. It has a long, flat nose.

Its nose helps it find food. It feels tiny electric fields from other animals. This helps it hunt. When food is close, its jaws snap out fast. The jaws shoot forward like a catapult. This helps it catch fish. This shark is very old. Some call it a living fossil. It is a very strange fish.

The goblin shark is a rare shark from the deep sea.

Some people call it a "living fossil." This is because its family is very old. It dates back 125 million years!

This shark has pink skin and a long, flat snout. Its snout has tiny parts called ampullae of Lorenzini. These help the shark feel small electric fields from prey.

This helps it find food in the dark.

When food is close, the shark uses a special way to eat. Its jaws can snap forward very fast. This happens because of elastic ligaments. These are like stretchy bands. They hold the jaws back like a catapult. When the shark bites, the bands let go. The jaws shoot out to grab fish or squid.

Most adults grow to be 3 to 4 meters long. One large female was found in Taiwan. She weighed 110 kilograms. These sharks live in many oceans. They like to stay in deep water. Adults usually live deeper than young sharks.

The goblin shark is a rare animal from the deep sea.

Some people call it a "living fossil." This is because its family is very old. This lineage is about 125 million years old. It is the only living member of its family, Mitsukurinidae. This shark has pink skin and a long, flat snout.

The shark can grow to be 3 to 4 meters long. One huge female was caught in 2000. That shark was about 6 meters long. It is a strange and wonderful creature.

This shark has a very special way of catching food. It uses its long snout to find prey. The snout has tiny parts called ampullae of Lorenzini. These help the shark sense small electric fields from other animals.

When food is close, the shark uses a catapult-like move. It has stretchy bands called elastic ligaments near its jaw. These bands hold the jaws back under tension. When the shark bites, the bands release. The jaws snap forward very quickly to grab fish or squid. This helps the shark catch food even if it is a slow swimmer.

Scientists first described this shark in 1898. An American scientist named David Starr Jordan wrote about it. He found an immature male shark in Sagami Bay. This shark was near Yokohama, Japan. The shark had been found by a man named Alan Owston. Jordan named the shark Mitsukurina owstoni to honor two men. He named it after Alan Owston and Professor Kakichi Mitsukuri. The name "goblin shark" comes from a Japanese myth. It is named after a creature with a long nose and red face.

Goblin sharks live in many different parts of the world. They can be found in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans. They also live in the waters near New Zealand and Australia.

These sharks like to live in very deep water. Most live on the upper continental slope. This is a place where the ocean floor slopes down. They are usually found at depths greater than 270 meters. Adults like to live even deeper than the young sharks. Some sharks have even been seen at depths of 1,000 meters.

Learning about this shark helps us understand the deep ocean. It shows how animals can change to live in the dark. The shark has a flabby body and small fins. This means it is a slow, sluggish swimmer. It uses its large, oily liver to float easily. This helps it drift toward prey without being seen.

Even though they are rare, they are found all over the globe. Scientists still study them to learn more about their lives. We are still discovering how deep they can truly go.

The goblin shark, known scientifically as Mitsukurina owstoni, is a rare species of deep-sea shark.

It is often called a "living fossil" by researchers. This is because it is the only living member of the family Mitsukurinidae. This specific lineage is approximately 125 million years old. The shark has a very distinctive appearance. It features a pinkish skin tone and a long, flat snout. Its jaws are highly protrusible, meaning they can extend far forward. This unique anatomy makes it a fascinating subject for marine biologists studying ancient lineages.

To catch its prey, the goblin shark uses a highly specialized mechanical process. The shark's long snout is covered in ampullae of Lorenzini. These are sensory organs that detect minute electric fields produced by nearby animals. Once prey is detected, the shark uses its jaws like a catapult. Two pairs of elastic ligaments are located near the mandibular joint. These ligaments hold the jaws under tension while they are retracted. When the shark strikes, the ligaments release this tension. This action snaps the jaws forward at high speeds.

At the same time, a structure called the basihyal drops down. This expands the mouth and sucks in water along with the prey.

The feeding mechanism of the goblin shark is incredibly efficient for a slow swimmer. The combined protrusion of the upper and lower jaws is 2.1 to 9.5 times greater than in other sharks. Interestingly, the lower jaw moves much faster than the upper jaw. It moves at a velocity about two times greater because it swings upward during the strike. The maximum velocity of these jaws can reach 5 meters per second. This rapid movement allows the shark to act as an ambush predator. It can drift toward prey using its large, oily liver for buoyancy. This helps the shark stay neutrally buoyant and avoid detection.

Goblin sharks are found in all three major oceans. They live in the Atlantic, the Indo-Pacific, and the waters around Oceania.

In the Atlantic, they have been recorded from the Gulf of Mexico to Senegal. In the Indo-Pacific, they appear near Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Most of these sharks inhabit the upper continental slope. They typically live at depths greater than 270 meters. However, adults often live in much deeper waters than juveniles. Some specimens have been found as deep as 1,000 meters. Recent footage from 2024 even suggests they may inhabit even deeper regions.

The history of describing this shark involves some scientific confusion. In 1898, the American ichthyologist David Starr Jordan first described the species. He based his work on an immature male caught in Sagami Bay, Japan. The specimen was originally acquired by the naturalist Alan Owston. Jordan named the species Mitsukurina owstoni to honor both Owston and Professor Kakichi Mitsukuri. For many years, scientists struggled to classify the shark correctly. Because the jaws were often fixed in different positions during preservation, some researchers thought they were seeing different species. Modern science has since corrected these errors through better anatomical study.

While most adults measure between 3 and 4 meters, they can grow much larger.

One enormous female captured in 2000 was estimated to be around 6 meters long. In 2023, a heavily pregnant individual weighing 146 kilograms was landed in Taiwan. This shark was found at a depth of 1,000 meters. The goblin shark primarily eats teleost fishes, such as rattails and dragonfishes.

It also consumes cephalopods and various crustaceans. Because it is a rare species, it is currently assessed as "Least Concern" by the IUCN. This is due to its wide global distribution and the low number of sharks caught by fisheries.

Studying the goblin shark provides important connections to the broader field of evolutionary biology. It is classified as the most basal member of the order Lamniformes, which are known as mackerel sharks. This means it represents one of the earliest branches of this group. Genetic studies have confirmed this basal position. The shark retains several primitive traits that have changed in other modern sharks. By looking at its anatomy, scientists can learn about the history of shark evolution. The existence of this species helps researchers understand how life has persisted in the deep ocean for millions of years.