A sight that surprised experts who believed sharks didn't live in these frigid waters

A shark in Antarctica

A sight that surprised experts: A shark struts in the near-freezing waters of Antarctica

For the first time, researchers' cameras captured a shark in the depths of near-freezing waters near Antarctica, a sight that surprised many experts who believed sharks didn't live in these frigid waters. A large shark appeared on camera moving slowly across the empty seabed at a depth where sunlight never reaches.

Researcher Alan Jamieson confirmed that this sighting was completely unexpected, especially since most scientists had assumed for years that sharks didn't live in the icy waters of Antarctica, according to the Associated Press. "We didn't expect to see sharks, because the general rule is you don't find sharks in Antarctica," said Jamieson.

"A huge shark"

He added, "It's not just a small shark, it's a huge one," adding, "These creatures are like tanks." Jamieson, founder and director of the Minderoo-UWA research center, noted that he had found no previous record of a shark in the Southern Ocean, but added that slow-moving "sleeper" sharks may have been living in Antarctica for a long time unnoticed.

Peter Cain, a conservation biologist at Charles Darwin University, confirmed that the presence of a shark in this far south had never been recorded before. He pointed out that climate change and rising ocean temperatures may be gradually pushing sharks into colder waters in the Southern Hemisphere, but data on changes in their range near Antarctica is scarce due to the region's isolation and inaccessibility.

A sight that surprised experts who believed sharks didn't live in these cold waters.

The shark

The camera that captured the scene The shark, belonging to the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre, which studies life in the deepest parts of the world's oceans, was located off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula, an area entirely within the Southern Ocean (also known as the Southern Ocean), south of 60 degrees latitude.

The shark was observed at a depth of 490 meters, where the water temperature was only 1.27 degrees Celsius, barely above freezing. The Southern Ocean is characterized by strong water gradients down to depths of around 1,000 meters, where the cold, dense water from below does not easily mix with the fresh water from melting ice above.