125-Million-Year-Old Goblin Shark Filmed Alive in the Deep Sea for the First Time
Scientists have captured the first confirmed footage of a goblin shark alive in its natural deep-sea habitat, offering an extraordinary glimpse of one of the ocean’s most mysterious predators.
The discovery was made during deep-sea research involving scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre. Researchers documented two live goblin sharks — one near Jarvis Island and another along the slope of the Tonga Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
The Tonga Trench sighting, recorded in 2024, was particularly remarkable. A baited deep-sea camera captured the shark at a depth of about 1,997 metres, nearly 2,000 metres below the ocean surface and around 700 metres deeper than previous known live observations of the species.
The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is often described as a “living fossil” because its lineage dates back roughly 125 million years. Until these observations, scientists had largely studied the species from sharks accidentally caught by fishing gear and brought to the surface, leaving much of its natural behaviour and habitat poorly understood.
One of the shark’s most remarkable adaptations is its highly protrusible jaw. Its jaws can rapidly extend forward to seize prey before snapping back into position — an unusual feeding mechanism believed to be suited to life in the deep ocean, where food can be scarce.
The footage itself was incredibly brief. During an expedition that collected more than 50 days of continuous deep-sea video across a huge range of depths, the goblin shark appeared for only about 20 seconds.
The discoveries have expanded scientists’ understanding of the goblin shark’s geographic and depth range and serve as another reminder of how much of the deep ocean remains unexplored.
For a creature whose lineage has survived for about 125 million years, disappearing into the darkness of the deep sea may have been the ultimate survival strategy — until a camera finally found it.
125-Million-Year-Old Goblin Shark Filmed Alive in the Deep Sea for the First Time