Puzzled scientists are trying to figure out what a giant shark native to the Arctic was doing in considerably warmer waters thousands of miles south of its frigid home.
Researchers from Florida International University and the Belize Fisheries Department recently discovered a Greenland shark, which typically lives in the freezing waters of the Arctic, in the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea while working with local Belizean fishermen to tag tiger sharks, according to a press release from the university.
The shark was swimming near the Belize Barrier Reef, the second-longest barrier reef in the world, the scientists said. The discovery marks the first time a shark of its kind has been found in western Caribbean waters.
Devanshi Kasana, a marine biologist at FIU and a Ph.D. candidate in the university’s Predator Ecology and Conservation lab, at first thought that what she was looking at was a sixgill shark, which is known to live in the deep waters off coral reefs.
“I knew it was something unusual and so did the fishers, who hadn’t ever seen anything quite like it in all their combined years of fishing,” Kasana said in a statement.
A Greenland shark, typically found in the Arctic, has been found thousands of miles south in Belize.
Devanshi Kasana/Florida International University.
Kasana then conferred with her adviser and other shark experts, texting a photo of the creature. The final determination was that it was “definitely” in the sleeper shark family due to its large size, and was most likely a Greenland shark or a hybrid between a Greenland shark and a Pacific sleeper shark, according to FIU.
It is unclear whether the researchers were able to tag the shark.
“This finding is so exciting because it suggests that these ancient predators are potentially roaming the world’s oceans from pole to Equator, but staying very deep in tropical waters,” Kasana, who is still in Belize, said in an emailed statement to ABC News. “It feels great to be a part of this and be a part of what could be the first step in protecting sleeper sharks in this region.”
Little is known about the Greenland shark. The half-blind shark subsists by scavenging on polar bear carcasses and can live up to 250 and perhaps even 500 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, making them the longest-living vertebrate known to science.
Greenland sharks are also massive in size and can reach up to 23 feet long and weigh up to 1.5 tons, according to National Geographic.
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