Shark spotted for the first time in Antarctica's near-freezing deep waters

An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the suns rays to illuminate was an unexpected sightMany experts had thought sharks didnt exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera researcher Alan Jamieson said this week The shark filmed in January 2025 was a substantial specimen with an estimated length of between 3 and 4 meters 10 and 13 feetWe went down there not expecting to see sharks because theres a general rule of thumb that you dont get sharks in Antarctica Jamieson saidAnd its not even a little one either Its a hunk of a shark These things are tanks he addedThe camera operated by the MinderooUWA DeepSea Research Centre which investigates life in the deepest parts of the worlds oceans was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula That is well inside the boundaries of the Antarctic Ocean also known as the Southern Ocean which is defined as below the 60degree south latitude lineThe center on Wednesday gave The Associated Press permission to publish the imagesThe shark was 490 meters 1608 feet deep where the water temperature was a nearfreezing 127 degrees Celsius 3429 degrees FahrenheitA skate appears in frame motionless on the seabed and seemingly unperturbed by the passing shark The skate a shark relative that looks like a stingray was no surprise since scientists already knew their range extended that far southJamieson who is the founding director of the University of Western Australiabased research center said he could find no record of another shark found in the Antarctic OceanPeter Kyne a Charles Darwin University conservation biologist independent of the research center agreed that a shark had never before been recorded so far southClimate change and warming oceans could potentially be driving sharks to the Southern Hemispheres colder waters but there was limited data on range changes near Antarctica because of the regions remoteness Kyne saidThe slowmoving sleeper sharks could have long been in Antarctica without anyone noticing he saidThis is great The shark was in the right place the camera was in the right place and they got this great footage Kyne said Its quite significantThe sleeper shark population in the Antarctic Ocean was likely sparse and difficult for humans to detect Jamieson saidThe photographed shark was maintaining a depth of around 500 meters 1640 feet along a seabed that sloped into much deeper water The shark maintained that depth because that was the warmest layer of several water layers stacked upon each other to the surface Jamieson saidThe Antarctic Ocean is heavily layered or stratified to a depth of around 1000 meters 3280 feet because of conflicting properties including colder denser water from below not readily mixing with fresh water running off melting ice from aboveJamieson expects other Antarctic sharks live at the same depth feeding on the carcasses of whales giant squids and other marine creatures that die and sink to the bottomThere are few research cameras positioned at that specific depth in Antarctic waters Those that are can only operate during the Southern Hemisphere summer months from December through FebruaryThe other 75 per cent of the year no ones looking at all And so this is why I think we occasionally come across these surprises Jamieson saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever