Underwater camera films shark in Antarctic Ocean, thought to be a world first

A sleeper shark has been captured by an underwater camera for the first time in the Antarctic Ocean. The report by the Associated Press (AP) includes a video of the large fish nonchalantly drifting past a camera, operated by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre.

In a world that’s full of cameras on the surface, it’s easy to forget that humans have explored just 5% of Earth’s oceans. As the Minderoo-UWA’s name suggests, it is committed to exploring some of the deepest areas of the ocean – which is why the camera was positioned off the South Shetland Islands, where the encounter happened.

The report explains that the footage was recorded at a depth of 1,608 feet in near-freezing water temperatures. To put the animal's presence into perspective, the sleeper shark (part of the Somniosidae family) is commonly found in the Pacific Ocean – but this latest development proves that the species is not just limited to the Northern Hemisphere.

It’s not just sleeper sharks that were thought to steer clear of Antarctica. AP spoke to researcher and founding director of the research center, Alan Jamieson, who said: “We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t get sharks in Antarctica”.

Unsurprisingly, ocean warming could be the culprit. But with few cameras said to exist at the depth at which the sleeper shark was recorded, and with the center's cameras only operational from December to February, it’s not surprising that these majestic creatures have evaded scientists for so long.

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