A rare goblin shark that was caught off the coast of Australia earlier this year has been sent to the Australian Museum, where their Ichthyology Collection Manager Mark McGrouther got the incredibly cool task of getting to examine the specimen. And he was so excited about it, he decided to film it.
As you can see in the video above, the strange creature has some pretty interesting traits. The species' jaws in particular are pretty unique, as they contain small sharp teeth that they actually use to spear their prey. This involves them actually projecting their jaw forward from their skull - something that McGrouther manually reenacts. And, yes, it does kind of look like something out of Alien.
"It manages to spear whatever prey it's after and unlike other sharks, like whalers and white sharks, it's got very pointy teeth which are used to spear the prey, not to actually cut it so this fish will generally be swallowing prey whole," says McGrouther in the video above.
This particular shark is around 1.2 metres long but two larger specimens will also be on display in the museum alongside it. Goblin sharks are found between depths of 300 and 900 metres and are rarely seen by humans.
So this is probably your best chance of seeing this anomaly from the deep up close and personal. Enjoy.
Source: The Australian Museum