Discovery log

2007

A live frilled shark filmed for the first time

On 21 January 2007, a Japanese fisherman found a 1.6-metre female frilled shark alive at the surface off Shizuoka, likely driven up from the depths by illness or unusually warm water. Taken to Awashima Marine Park, she was filmed alive before dying a few hours later. This species, which normally lives between 600 and 1,000 metres deep, had never before been observed alive at the surface: according to the marine park, these are the earliest known moving images of a living specimen.

• 🌊Pacific Ocean
• ↓Epipelagic zone
• ↓Mesopelagic zone
• ↓Bathypelagic zone