{"id":731607,"date":"2026-06-12T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T10:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731607\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T10:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T10:09:10","slug":"goblin-shark-seen-alive-for-the-first-time-in-its-natural-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/731607\/","title":{"rendered":"Goblin shark seen alive for the first time in its natural habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers at the University of Western Australia<\/a> have caught a rare glimpse of a goblin shark<\/a> in the Pacific Ocean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sightings were on\u00a0a seamount near Jarvis Island, on the slope of the Tonga Trench, located between Hawaii and the Cook Islands in the Central Pacific.<\/p>\n

\"Goblin<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Western Australia have caught a rare glimpse of a goblin shark in the Pacific Ocean.\u00a0Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre and Inkfish<\/p>\n

The team only saw the elusive sea creature for about 20 seconds, but it marked a massive milestone<\/a>: the first live observation in its natural deep ocean habitat.<\/p>\n

UWA\u00a0said that in the past, goblin sharks have only been seen alive after being hooked on a fishing line and brought to the surface, where they died soon after.<\/p>\n

The discovery was published in the Journal of Fish Biology, with researchers from Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre and the University of Hawaii at Manoa saying the two live observations extended the known depth and geographic range of the goblin shark significantly.<\/p>\n

Co-author of the study Professor Alan Jamieson, Director of Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, documented the sighting during a 2024 expedition to the Tonga Trench.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goblin shark is a deep-sea charismatic animal, and I never thought we\u2019d see one alive,\u201d Jamieson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not only seeing it alive that was fascinating, but also the fact the Tonga Trench goblin shark was 700 metres deeper than previous known, making the deepest-known white shark.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn that expedition we filmed over 50 days of continuous footage between depths of 800 and 10,800 metres and this observation was a little over 20 seconds long which is testament to how elusive this species is, and how special it is to have two observations in the same study.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lead author Aaron Judah, from the Deep-Sea Fish Ecology Lab and Deep-Sea Animal Research Centre at the University of Hawaii, said the new discovery demonstrated \u201cthere is still so much to explore in our deep ocean home\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the newly expanded geographic range of the goblin shark, this species can be included in regional management and a nation\u2019s biodiversity list,\u201d Judah said.<\/p>\n

\"Goblin<\/p>\n

The UWA\u00a0said that in the past, goblin sharks have only been seen alive after being hooked on a fishing line and brought to the surface, where they died soon after.\u00a0Photographic<\/p>\n

Goblin sharks are believed to be about 125 million years old and are sometimes referred to as \u201cliving fossils\u201d.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve previously been found near Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers at the University of Western Australia have caught a rare glimpse of a goblin shark in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-731607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}