A rare and very unusual shark has been caught by fishermen trawling off Green Cape. The goblin shark, (Mitsukurina owstoni) spends most of its life in very deep waters but this one came up in a net along with a load of crayfish.
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The trawlermen knew they had found something unusual, with “old Errol” quoted as having never seen one in the flesh in all his decades of fishing in local waters.
Luckily, Merimbula has the expertise of the Wharf Aquarium curator Michael McMaster and Alan Scrymgeour, from the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre on hand. The two were enthusiastically examining the animal when the News Weekly visited.
Alan described the shark as belonging to an “evolutionary dead end”, being the only species in its genus, which stopped evolving about 70 million years ago, during the dinosaur era.
He said this specimen would be only two to three years old, given its length of approximately 1.2m. Adult goblin sharks grow to a length of 3.8m.
Michael said very little is known about these elusive creatures, normally found in waters around the world, at depths up to 1200 metres. However, what is known is that they find their prey using hundreds of small sensors in their ‘nasal paddle’ which detect small electrical fields produced by the crustaceans and cephalopods they feed upon.
“Their teeth are often found in underwater electrical cables,” Michael explained.
“A lot of fishermen have been saying that the currents are very different this year,” added Michael, which, he speculated, may have something to do with how this shark found its way into the net.
The shark will be sent to the Australian Museum in Sydney to be added to their collection.