One of the most commonly known fish in the seas are sharks.
There are over 500 shark species, ranging in size from 6.7-inches to 40-feet in length. You’ve heard of great whites, tiger sharks, hammerheads, and whale sharks, but have you heard of the “ghost shark?”
The odd looking “ghost shark” aka pointy-nosed blue chimaera is a shark species usually found near New Zealand and Australia. And it’s never been captured on film, until now.
Video released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute of California shows a ghost shark up close and personal. They used a remotely operated vehicle in water at depths of up to 6.700 feet off California and Hawaii.
According to Dave Ebert, program director for the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories said, “The guys doing the video were actually geologists,” and they weren’t even looking for ghost sharks.
And if Ebert and other chimaera experts are correct, the video is the first discovery of this species in the Northern Hemisphere AND the first time the pointy-nosed blue chimaera has been seen alive in its natural habitat.