{"id":103953,"date":"2025-08-28T21:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103953\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T21:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T21:12:07","slug":"watch-first-ever-orange-shark-be-caught-by-fisherman-in-costa-rica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/103953\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch first-ever orange shark be caught by fisherman in Costa Rica"},"content":{"rendered":"

An angler in Central America recently caught a rare orange shark while fishing in Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

Garvin Watson, who lives in Costa Rica, told USA TODAY he reeled in a 6-foot, 6-inch nurse shark with white eyes and a bright orange body, unlike anything he had ever seen before.<\/p>\n

Footage and photos provided by Watson show the neon-colored shark in water beside a boat with the angler aboard.<\/p>\n

“(It was) incredible,” Watson, owner of the Parismina Domus Dei Hotel<\/a>, told USA TODAY on Thursday, Aug. 28. “We couldn’t believe what we had in front of us, an orange shark that looked like an alien.”<\/p>\n

The fisherman snagged the first sighted xanthic nurse shark in Costa Rica\u2019s Tortuguero National Park last August, according to a report published in the Marine Biodiversity journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A fisherman wanted a picture of his catch. The 6-foot shark bit him.<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch: First-ever orange shark spotted<\/p>\n

Scientists said it\u2019s the first time an orange shark has ever been recorded, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Its unique neon-orange color is a phenomenon called “xanthism,” a pigmentation condition portraying yellow or golden tones in the skin, scales or fur of animals, scientists wrote in the report.<\/p>\n

The shark was “the first scientifically documented case of total xanthism in the species and the first record from the Caribbean Sea,” according to the researchers.<\/p>\n

Video and photos show the shark’s eyes were white, with no visible irises, when it was caught. Sharks typically have a black iris, researchers said.<\/p>\n

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows rare orange shark be caught by fisherman in Costa Rica<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An angler in Central America recently caught a rare orange shark while fishing in Costa Rica. Garvin Watson,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[59656,49,48,14066,59653,59652,59655,66,59654,36185,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-103953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-bright-orange","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-costa-rica","12":"tag-garvin-watson","13":"tag-nurse-shark","14":"tag-parismina-domus-dei-hotel","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-shark-in-water","17":"tag-usa-today","18":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}