Footage of a sleeping shark traversing the empty Antarctic seas has left experts with a lot to discuss, as this newly captured video defies the common belief that people living in the depths of the ocean are not local.
Most experts think that sharks don’t exist in the cold waters of Antarctica, researcher and founding director of the Deep-Sea Research Center at the University of Western Australia, Alan Jamieson, said this week.
The shark, recorded in January 2025, was of a large size, measuring between three and four meters in length.
“We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule that you don’t find sharks in Antarctica,” Jamieson told the Associated Press. “And he’s not even a small, hunk of a shark these things are tanks.”
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A camera used by an Australian research institute, which studies life in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, has been placed off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula.
The shark was seen swimming at a depth of 490 meters, in temperatures of more than 1 C.
The shark swam at that depth because it was in very warm areas of water piled up on top of each other, Jamieson explained, adding that he had no other record of any shark swimming in the Antarctic Ocean.
Another expert, Peter Kyne, a conservationist at Charles Darwin University who is not affiliated with the research institute, agreed that there were no previous records of sharks swimming this far south.
Data on shark movement patterns and the region’s range are not readily available because of the remoteness, Kyne explained. While climate change may be contributing, it’s also possible that the slow-moving sleeper sharks were already in Antarctica, but no one ever noticed.
“This is fantastic. The shark was in the right place, the camera was in the right place and they got this great picture,” Kyne said. “It’s very important.”
Jamieson added that the number of sharks that sleep in the Antarctic Ocean can also be small, making them difficult to spot.
The Antarctic Ocean is mostly placed at a depth of 1,000 meters due to its turbulent structure. The cold, dense water from the bottom does not mix easily with the fresh water near the surface.
Jamieson suspects that other sharks live at similar depths, feeding on whale carcasses, giant octopuses and other submerged marine life.
Research cameras set up at that depth are few and far between and operate only in the summer months.
“The other 75 percent of the year, nobody’s looking. So that’s why, I think, we’re having these surprises,” Jamieson said.
The mysterious depths of the Antarctic Ocean are home to several seemingly universal sea creatures, including the mackerel icefish, which, due to its lack of hemoglobin, has colorless blood, and the Antarctic cod, which, like the Antarctic toothfish, has anti-freezing proteins in its tissues and blood.
Similarly, anglerfish, distinguished by the bioluminescent bulb on their heads, large mouths and sharp teeth, were first recorded in Antarctic waters in 2014 and are usually found at depths between 1,000 and 2,000 meters.
– Via files from the Associated Press
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