"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 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. The center on Wednesday gave The Associated Press permission to publish the images."
A sleeper shark estimated at 3 to 4 meters long was filmed in January 2025 in Antarctic waters near the South Shetland Islands. The camera recorded the shark at 490 meters depth where water temperature measured about 1.27°C. The Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre positioned the camera well inside the Southern Ocean below 60°S. Experts had generally believed sharks did not inhabit the frigid Antarctic. A skate was also observed motionless on the seabed and appeared unperturbed by the passing shark. Available records show no prior documented shark sightings that far south.
Read at ABC7 Los Angeles
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