Goblin Shark

On January, 2007, a 4 ft (1.3 m) goblin shark was caught alive in Tokyo Bay, in waters 500 to 650 ft deep. It was taken to the Tokyo Sea Life Park to be displayed in an aquarium, but died two days later on Jan. 27. Later that same year in April, several animals were seen swimming in shallow water in the Japanese Sea. A live one was caught near Tokyo Bay. It is the first time the animals have been seen swimming in such shallow waters.

The goblin shark is a deep-sea shark at depths greater than 200m. This shark feeds on a variety of organisms that live in deep waters (such as deep-sea squid, crabs, and deep-sea fishes). The most distinctive characteristic is the unorthodox shape of its head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like snout, much longer than other sharks' snouts. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long protrusible jaws. When the jaws are retracted, the shark resembles a pink gray nurse shark with an unusually long nose. The pink coloration, unique among sharks, is due to blood vessels underneath a semi-transparent skin (which bruises easily), thereby causing the coloring. The fins are bluish in appearance. Goblin sharks lack a nictiting membrane. They have no precaudal pit and no keels. The front teeth are long and smooth-edged, while the rear teeth are adaptable for crushing.

The goblin shark is a medium-to-large shark. Typically, specimens are 6.6 feet to 9.8 feet in length. Their fins are not pointed and instead are low and rounded, with the anal and pelvic fins significantly larger than the dorsal fins. Their heterocercal tails are similar to the thresher shark's, with the upper lobe significantly longer proportionately than other sharks'. In addition, the goblin shark's tail lacks a ventral lobe.

They can be found throughout the world, from Australia in the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic Ocean. They are best known from the waters around Japan, where the species was first discovered by modern science in 1897. In 2003, more than a hundred goblin sharks were caught off the northwest coast of Taiwan, an area in which they had previously not been found. Reportedly, the sharks were caught a short time after an earthquake occurred in the area.

Very little is known about the species' life history and reproductive habits, as encounters with them have been relatively rare. As seemingly rare as they are however, there seems to be no real threat to their populations and so they are not classified as endangered species by the IUCN.