Surprise shark caught on camera for first time in Antarctica's near-freezing deep

[Judi Lynn]

February 18, 20262:26 AM ET
By The Associated Press

- click link for image -

https://tinyurl.com/mt6m42np

In this image made from video and released by the University of Western Australia, a sleeper shark swims into the spotlight of a video camera in Antarctica in January 2025.

University of Western Australia/AP

MELBOURNE, Australia — An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the sun's rays to illuminate was an unexpected sight.

Many experts had thought sharks didn't exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera, researcher Alan Jamieson said this week. The shark, filmed in January 2025, was a substantial specimen with an estimated length of between 3 and 4 meters (10 and 13 feet).

"We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there's a general rule of thumb that you don't get sharks in Antarctica," Jamieson said. "And it's not even a little one either. It's a hunk of a shark. These things are tanks," he added.

The camera operated by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, which investigates life in the deepest parts of the world's oceans, was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula. That is well inside the boundaries of the Antarctic Ocean, also known as the Southern Ocean, which is defined as below the 60-degree south latitude line.

More:
https://www.npr.org/2026/02/18/nx-s1-5718010/shark-caught-on-camera-antarctica

[IronLionZion]

1. Cold water sharks exist in the Arctic, so it's not too surprising to find them near Antarctica too

or it means the waters there are warming. Greenland sharks exist in icy cold waters. Their bodies have evolved over millennia to survive in that environment.