The goblin shark, often called a “living fossil,” stands out due to its unusual appearance. This deep-sea shark has an elongated, flattened snout resembling a blade. Its distinct features include soft, pinkish skin and jaws that can protrude dramatically, revealing rows of sharp, nail-like teeth. These characteristics contribute to its otherworldly visage.
Understanding Their Conservation Status
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the goblin shark as “Least Concern.” This designation means the species is not currently at high risk of extinction. While sightings are infrequent, this rarity reflects their deep ocean habitat, far removed from human activity, rather than a critically low population.
Goblin sharks inhabit a wide distribution across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They typically reside on upper continental slopes, submarine canyons, and seamounts, at depths ranging from 270 to 960 meters, and have been recorded as deep as 2,000 meters. Their deep-sea environment naturally limits encounters with humans. Although occasionally caught as bycatch in deepwater trawls, longlines, or gillnets, there is no targeted commercial fishery for them.
Life in the Deep: Goblin Shark Biology
Goblin sharks are benthopelagic, meaning they live and feed both near the seafloor and in the water column. Their specialized feeding mechanism involves highly protrusible jaws that can extend rapidly forward, a behavior sometimes called “slingshot feeding.” This jaw protrusion is remarkably fast, with the lower jaw reaching velocities of over 3 meters per second, enabling them to seize elusive prey.
Their diet consists of deep-sea teleost fishes like rattails and dragonfishes, cephalopods like squid, and various crustaceans including decapods and isopods. The goblin shark’s body exhibits adaptations to its deep-sea environment, including a soft, flabby body and small fins, suggesting a sluggish nature. They are thought to be ambush predators, conserving energy by slowly drifting towards unsuspecting prey.
The long snout of the goblin shark is covered with electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini, allowing them to detect faint electrical fields produced by other animals in the deep sea. This sensory ability is important for hunting where their small eyes are of limited use. While specific details about their reproduction are scarce, goblin sharks are believed to be ovoviviparous, with embryos developing inside the mother and feeding on unfertilized eggs.
Why We Know So Little About Them
Studying deep-sea creatures like the goblin shark presents significant challenges due to the extreme conditions of their habitat, including immense pressure, cold temperatures, and complete darkness. The logistical and technological demands of deep-sea exploration, such as deploying specialized remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles, are considerable and costly. These factors contribute to the infrequent encounters humans have with goblin sharks.
Most scientific knowledge about goblin sharks comes from accidental captures by deep-sea fishing trawlers and other fishing gear. This opportunistic data collection provides limited insights into their population dynamics, behavior, and life cycle. Live specimens brought to the surface typically survive only briefly in aquariums, making direct observation challenging. The scarcity of comprehensive data on deep-sea sharks reflects the inherent difficulties of researching species in such remote and harsh environments.