Goblin Sharks Seen Alive in Their Natural Deep-Ocean Habitat

The deep ocean conceals most of the creatures that inhabit it, while some are almost never seen alive.

For more than a century, one of its most unusual sharks had appeared to humans only at the end of its life, pulled from the depths on fishing lines and left to die in alien surface waters.

That understanding has now shifted. Oceanographers led by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa have announced the first observations of living goblin sharks (Mitsukurina owstoni) within their natural deep-ocean environment.

Goblin sharks previously seen only dying

Until this research, every supposedly “live” goblin shark observed by people was already doomed. Fishers caught the animals on lines and brought them to the surface, allowing divers to view them only briefly before they died.

Nobody had previously documented a healthy, living goblin shark where the species naturally occurs. Its day-to-day existence had remained completely hidden.

Healthy goblin sharks observed in the deep

The new research, published in the Journal of Fish Biology, describes two healthy goblin sharks seen in their native habitat. One was recorded at a seamount near Jarvis Island, while the second was spotted on the slope of the Tonga Trench.

“Seeing the most iconic of all the deep-sea sharks alive and looking healthy in its natural habitat is a unique honor,” said Aaron Judah, lead author of the paper and a doctoral candidate in the Deep-Sea Fish Ecology Lab and the Deep-Sea Animal Research Center (DARC).

A surviving ancient shark lineage

Goblin sharks are occasionally termed living fossils. The species is the sole surviving representative of its family, a shark lineage dating back almost 125 million years.

Encountering even one alive and in good health is exceptional. Discovering two in an area where the species was not believed to occur made the findings considerably more unexpected.

Collectively, these sightings substantially extend the goblin shark’s recognised depth range as well as its known geographical distribution.

The observations were made in separate oceans, from different research vessels and through different methods of viewing the deep.

Archived footage reveals a goblin shark

The first record was not produced by a new voyage. Instead, it emerged from a careful review of video that had remained in a publicly accessible archive for several years.

In 2025, colleagues at DARC told Judah about a possible goblin shark seen during a 2019 Ocean Exploration Trust expedition aboard the E/V Nautilus. During that voyage, researchers investigated deep-sea ecosystems close to Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll and Jarvis Island.

“I was shocked to hear this because this species was not known to be in the Central Pacific,” said Judah.

The expedition recorded its dives with a camera mounted on the remotely operated vehicle Hercules, before making the footage publicly available for examination.

After tracing the archived material, Judah confirmed that the team had filmed a goblin shark during a livestreamed dive at an unnamed seamount north-west of Jarvis Island.

A second camera records Tonga sighting

The second observation took place during a 2024 R/V Dagon expedition to the Tonga Trench, as part of the Inkfish Open Ocean Expedition. Scientists from the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center operated a baited camera attached to a bottom lander, which captured a goblin shark swimming through the dark water.

Professor Alan Jamieson, founding director of the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center and a co-author of the study, documented the 2024 encounter.

“The goblin shark is one of these deep-sea charismatic animals that I never thought we’d see alive, and then to do so was amazing, but to then learn that colleagues in Hawai’i also saw one was just incredible,” he said.

Goblin sharks far outside their known range

Previously, researchers had identified goblin sharks only in limited areas off the western United States, Australia and Japan in the Pacific, as well as in small regions of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Both recently reported observations lie firmly within the Central Pacific, well beyond that established distribution.

The implications extend beyond a revised map. Once a species is confirmed in previously unrecognised waters, it can be incorporated into regional management plans and a country’s biodiversity records.

New depth record for goblin sharks

The Tonga observation also located the shark at a far greater depth than any previous record.

“I was also very surprised about how deep this species was found. The observation from the slope of the Tonga Trench is nearly 700 meters (2,300 feet) deeper than this species was known to live,” said Judah.

Judah said the discovery establishes a new depth record for the entire order Lamniformes, known as the mackerel sharks. This group also includes the white shark, basking shark and mako shark.

Why natural history research remains important

For Judah, the findings underline how much of the ocean remains genuinely unexplored. Healthy goblin sharks had apparently occupied the Central Pacific all along, without any record confirming their presence.

“It is really important that we still perform natural history work,” said Judah.

“New discoveries like this demonstrate that there is still so much to explore in our deep-ocean home. Given the newly-expanded geographic range of the goblin shark, this species can be included in regional management and a nationʻs biodiversity list, whereas, beforehand we didnʻt know it was even there!”