For The First Time Ever Mysterious Ghost Shark Caught On Camera Far From Waters Believed To Be Its Home

• comments
• 
• 

American scientists who had been surveying the depths of the ocean off the coast of California and Hawaii have for the first time ever recorded the mysterious 'Ghost Shark' on cameras accidentally.

When this creature appeared on the screens, the team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute sent a remote operated vehicle down to depths of 2,000 metres (6,700 ft).

The scientists call this unusual fish Hydrolagus trolli or pointy-nosed blur chimaera. Also known as 'Ghost Shark', this fish which was first named in 2002 is known to live in deep waters around Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia.

Ghost Sharks are mysterious, rarely seen creatures with a retractable penis on their heads, reports The Guardian. The creatures are related to sharks and rays but they don't have teeth and have tooth plates instead to grind food.

Unlike their namesakes, the heads and faces of ghost sharks are lined with dots, just like the scars of stitches. Ghost sharks that have pale and seemingly dead eyes dwell deep down into the ocean.

Dave Ebert, program director for the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories told National Geographic that the discovery of the creature was "dumb luck". "Normally, people probably wouldn't have been looking around in this area, so it's a little bit of dumb luck," he said.

This pointy-nosed blue chimaera had never been filmed alive. At first, the scientists at the research center thought it was a different variety, as this species was not known to live in the Northern Hemisphere.

"Hydrolagus cf. trolli was previously only known to occur in the southern Pacific Ocean off of Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia," the institute reports. The letters cf. indicate that the researchers believe the physical characteristics of the fish they saw closely match the official species description for Hydrolagus trolli.