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Far below the ice near the Antarctic Peninsula, a deep-sea camera recorded the barrel-shaped shark crossing the seabed in the South Shetland Trench.<\/p>\n
Reviewing the footage from that expedition, Professor Alan Jamieson and colleagues at the Minderoo-UWA<\/a> Deep-Sea Research Centre<\/a>, University of Western Australia, documented the first confirmed shark presence within Antarctic waters.<\/p>\n The shark passed slowly through the camera\u2019s light at a depth of 1,608 feet (490 meters), moving in water that was only slightly above freezing temperature.<\/p>\n Because no earlier record places a shark this far south, the sighting forces scientists to reconsider whether these animals have quietly occupied Antarctic depths all along.<\/p>\n Hidden life in Antarctic trenches<\/p>\n Catching the animal<\/a> on camera depended on a narrow search in a place that resists nearly every routine observation.<\/p>\n During a 64-day cruise, the UWA team logged 840 hours of seafloor video from 63 lander drops across the trench.<\/p>\n Jamieson said that for most of the year no one is observing the deep Antarctic seafloor, leaving long stretches when unexpected animals could easily pass unnoticed.<\/p>\n That blind stretch makes the sighting feel less like a sudden arrival than a reminder of how little surveillance takes place there.<\/p>\n Why sleeper sharks survive here<\/p>\n Sleeper<\/a> sharks are built for patience, not quick bursts through bright water near the surface. They occupy deep, dark water, grow slowly and can take decades to reach maturity.<\/p>\n Their large bodies and slow pace fit a life where food is scattered and long waits are normal. Scarcity, not impossibility, may explain why the Antarctic seemed empty of sharks for so very long.<\/p>\n The water around the shark measured about 34.3\u00b0F (1.3\u00b0C), cold enough to narrow life sharply without freezing the sea solid.<\/p>\n Salt lowers seawater\u2019s freezing point, and that leaves a little operating room for animals that are already adapted to deep cold.<\/p>\n Sleeper sharks make use of that margin by moving slowly and spending energy carefully when food is patchy. Those traits fit a place where meals can be rare and the margin for waste stays thin.<\/p>\n Why depth mattered<\/p>\n Depth<\/a> may have mattered as much as latitude in this strange encounter under the Antarctic ice.<\/p>\n Researchers said the shark held near 1,640 feet (500 meters) because a warmer band of water sits there, with colder layers above and below.<\/p>\n That water is stratified \u2013 stacked in layers that resist mixing \u2013 which can create a narrow corridor where a shark spends less energy.<\/p>\n The animal\u2019s path therefore may have been less random than it first seemed, and more like a precise use of local physics.<\/p>\n Identifying the Antarctic shark<\/p>\n Most clues point toward the southern sleeper shark<\/a>, Somniosus antarcticus. This is a bulky, deep-water species that is known from the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n Records place it mainly along continental margins and island slopes, often between roughly 1,600 and 3,800 feet (488 and 1,158 meters).<\/p>\n That profile fits the filmed animal\u2019s heavy body, small fins, and unhurried movement over the bottom.<\/p>\n Even so, shape alone cannot settle every close relative, which is where genetics enters the story.<\/p>\n Shark identity debated<\/p>\n Modern genetics has complicated the neat label attached to these sharks in southern waters today.<\/p>\n A 2023 study<\/a> found no molecular evidence separating southern sleeper sharks from Pacific sleeper sharks in sampled populations.<\/p>\n Those samples came mostly from the South Pacific, leaving scientists short of South Atlantic and Indian Ocean material.<\/p>\n That is why careful researchers describe the Antarctic visitor as likely a southern sleeper rather than stamping the case as closed.<\/p>\n What climate may mean<\/p>\n Climate change hangs over any Antarctic surprise, but the evidence here does not yet point one clear argument.<\/p>\n A warmer ocean can rearrange layers and move heat deeper, which may open or widen the depths that some cold-water species use.<\/p>\n At the same time, one shark on one camera could simply mean these animals were always there and almost nobody looked.<\/p>\n The sighting therefore raises a climate question without answering it, and that distinction still matters.<\/p>\n Next steps for researchers<\/p>\n New water<\/a> samples will probably carry the next evidence, not another lucky silhouette on camera.<\/p>\n The expedition collected 202 environmental DNA samples with genetic traces that organisms leave behind. Analysis of these samples may reveal the identity of the shark from its genetic traces. <\/p>\n If those samples match sleeper sharks, researchers can begin asking whether the filmed animal was a stray or part of a thin population.<\/p>\n More landers at the same depth would sharpen that answer faster than a single dramatic encounter ever could.<\/p>\n Rethinking sharks in Antarctic seas<\/p>\n The footage turns Antarctica from a presumed shark-free zone into a place with at least one deep-sea exception.<\/p>\n What follows now is slow science by necessity: more watching, more sampling, and more patience in a region that rarely offers easy answers.<\/p>\n Details reported<\/a> by ABC News.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read?\u00a0Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>\u00a0for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on\u00a0EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by\u00a0Eric Ralls<\/a>\u00a0and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A large sleeper shark has become the first shark ever filmed inside Antarctic waters. It was captured gliding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-327381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}