In Antarctica, a shark has been spotted for the first time

An unexpected discovery in the depths of the Southern Ocean has called into question the established notion that sharks do not inhabit Antarctic waters. A large sleeper shark measuring 3–4 meters in length was captured on video near the South Shetland Islands - significantly further south than representatives of this order have ever been recorded before. This was reported by The Independent.

The footage was captured by a camera from the Minderoo–UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, operating under the University of Western Australia. The device was located at a depth of approximately 490 meters, where the water temperature was only 1.27 °C.

"We didn't expect to see sharks because there's a general rule: there are no sharks in Antarctica. And this isn't a small specimen - it's a real giant," said the centre's director Alan Jamieson.

According to him, there is no confirmed data in scientific literature about shark encounters within the Southern Ocean - the waters south of the 60th parallel. An independent expert, conservation biologist Peter Kyne from Charles Darwin University, also noted that such southerly recordings had not been made before.

The footage shows the shark slowly moving above the lifeless seabed. A ray also comes into view - a relative of sharks, resembling a stingray in appearance. Its presence did not surprise the scientists: the range of rays has long been known to include southern latitudes.

Researchers suggest that sleeper sharks may have inhabited Antarctic waters before but remained undetected due to the region's inaccessibility. The Southern Ocean is characterised by pronounced stratification: cold dense waters at the bottom mix poorly with fresher waters from melting ice. At a depth of around 500 meters, a relatively "warm" layer forms, where the shark was located.

According to Jamieson, such sharks may feed on carcasses of whales, giant squid, and other large marine animals that sink to the bottom. However, observations are extremely limited: cameras at the required depth only operate during the Southern Hemisphere summer months - from December to February.

Scientists do not rule out that climate change and ocean warming may be affecting the distribution of predators, but data on range shifts in the Antarctic region remains insufficient.