A rare sea creature found off the coast of Australia in January has finally made its way to the Australian Museum for study. The creature, a rare goblin shark often referred to as an "alien of the deep" was originally found off the coast of Australia by a fishermen that has since donated it to the museum.
The goblin shark lives on deep-sea bottoms and is rarely seen by humans leaving much to learn about their lives in the deepest regions of the seas. The new specimen was originally caught by a fishermen near the coast of Eden, off Australia's southeast coast at a depth of about 656 feet in January and delivered to a local aquarium that preserved the specimen for the museum.
The museum, upon receiving the rare shark, did not hesitate to show off its flabby pink body, blue fins, long snout and nail-like teeth saying that the shark, though dead by the time it arrived, had been well-kept and would be an asset to its collection of sea creatures.
The shark, a juvenile male, measuring approximately four feet in length, will be added to the museum's collection alongside two other larger male specimens, both measuring around 12 feet in length. Originally caught by a fishermen near the coast of Eden, off Australia's southeast coast at a depth of about 656 feet in January and delivered to a local aquarium that preserved the specimen for the museum.
"It's pretty impressive, it's not hideous it's beautiful," says the Australian Museum's fish collection manager Mark McGrouther, who described its teeth as looking like "little daggers".
"They are not caught terribly often. They are not encountered terribly often at all."
The species, known by its scientific name of "Mitsukurina owstoni", is thought to date back some 125 million years making it a living fossil. The shark's jaw mechanism, which shoots out when it detects the electrical impulses of its prey, fascinates McGrouther.
"I suspect because it has got soft, flabby musculature, it doesn't need much energy... so it will swim slowly over the bottom just using its snout like a metal detector," McGrouther says. "It will be sweeping over the bottom and when it detects a small fish, or a crab or a squid it will shoot those jaws out 'wham' and capture whatever it is.
"It will spear it with those sharp pointed teeth and then just wolf it down whole."
Researchers have taken tissue samples from this latest goblin shark specimen and will preserve it for study at the museum.
