Fishermen Catch Mysterious Deep Sea Shark Off The Coast Of Australia
People are bewildered after fishermen off the coast of Australia pulled up an unusual catch: a strange-looking deep-sea shark.
Professional fisherman Trapman Bermagui shared about the discovery on social media. He’s been working in the fishing industry for a while and isn’t phased by much, but even he took a minute to appreciate the uniqueness of the find.
He wrote, “The face of a deep sea rough skin shark. All the way from 650m.”
The shark was caught at an impressive depth of 2,133 feet (650 meters). Trapman shared on Facebook that it weighed around 15kg and was 5-foot-long.
Not long after sharing the discovery, Trapman was back on social media sharing the photo of another deep-sea shark pulled in by a fellow fisherman.
He said, “Another crazy looking deep water shark. This one was caught by a fellow fisherman off JB.”
Fisherman @_ryanchristian_23 commented on the photo that the shark was “still kicking when it hit the deck.”
Thankfully, he explained that they were able to throw it back and watch it swim away – hopefully back to the depths of the sea where it belongs.
Many people in the comments assumed the shark was a species known as a cookie cutter shark. However, Bermagui allegedly told Newsweek that the shark was definitely not a cookie cutter shark.
He said, “Totally not a cookie-cutter. It’s a rough skin shark, also known as a species of endeavor dog shark. These sharks are common in depths greater than 600 meters. We catch them in the wintertime usually.”
According to Newsweek, experts weren’t quite as sure. Christopher Lower with the California State University Long Beach Shark Lab said that the shark resembled a deepwater kitefin shark to him. He said that he couldn’t see the whole body or size of the shark to properly assess it, but his guess was a kitefin shark based on the photos he did see.
He added, “We discover new species of deepwater shark all the time and many look very similar to each other.”
While we may never know exactly what species he caught, we’re just glad to see it was set free and got to live another day.
