Footage of a sleeper shark traversing a barren Antarctic seabed has left experts with much to discuss, as the newly captured video contradicts a widely held belief that the deep-sea dwellers don’t live in the region.
Many experts thought sharks didn’t exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica, the researcher and founding director of the Deep-Sea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia, Alan Jamieson, said this week.
The shark, filmed in January 2025, was substantially sized, estimated to be between three and four metres long.
“We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t get sharks in Antarctica,” Jamieson told The Associated Press. “And it’s not even a little one either. It’s a hunk of a shark. These things are tanks.”
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The camera operated by the Australian research facility, which studies life in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula.
The shark was spotted swimming at a depth of 490 metres, in temperatures hovering just above 1 C.
The shark was swimming at that depth because it was in the warmest of several water layers stacked on top of each other, Jamieson explained, adding that he found no other record of any shark swimming in the Antarctic Ocean.
Another expert, Peter Kyne, a Charles Darwin University conservation biologist not associated with the research centre, agreed that there were no previous records of a shark swimming so far south.
Data on sharks’ travel patterns and ranges in the region are relatively scarce due to its remoteness, Kyne explained. While climate change could be a contributing factor, it may also be that the slow-moving sleeper sharks were already in Antarctica, but nobody ever noticed.
“This is great. The shark was in the right place, the camera was in the right place and they got this great footage,” Kyne said. “It’s quite significant.”
Jamieson added that the sleeper shark population in the Antarctic Ocean may also be small, making them hard to spot.
The Antarctic Ocean is heavily layered to a depth of around 1,000 metres because of its conflicting properties. Colder, denser water from below does not readily mix with fresh water closer to the surface.
Jamieson suspects that other sharks linger at the same depth, feeding on whale carcasses, giant squid and other sunken marine life.
Research cameras stationed at those depths are few and far between and are only operational in the summer months.
“The other 75 per cent of the year, no one’s looking at all. And so this is why, I think, we occasionally come across these surprises,” Jamieson said.
The mysterious depths of the Antarctic Ocean are home to only a handful of seemingly otherworldly sea creatures, including the mackerel icefish, which, due to its lack of hemoglobin, has colourless blood, and Antarctic cod, which, like the Antarctic toothfish, have antifreeze proteins in their tissues and blood.
Similarly, anglerfish, distinguished by a bioluminescent bulb on their heads, large mouths and sharp teeth, were first documented in Antarctic waters in 2014 and are commonly found at depths of between 1,000 and 2,000 metres.
— With files from The Associated Press
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