Rare and very unusual shark caught by fishermen on NSW Coast

by Kate Smith on 4 Feb 2015 Last Thursday a rare and very unusual shark was caught by fishermen trawling off Green Cape, south of Eden on the NSW south coast.

The creepy looking fish, known as a goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni), was accidentally caught by local fisherman in a net along with a load of crayfish.

The shark is sometimes called a 'living fossil' and is usually found near the sea floor at depths of about 1200 metres.

Fisherman Lochlainn Kelly, 22, who pulled up the haul said he was 'more excited than frightened' when he discoved the strange finned creature amongst the fish.

'We just winched up the wire and brought the net on and the shark was in the net,' Mr Kelly said.

Mr Kelly who started fishing with his dad, Mike, at 15, has lived in Eden 'forever', but has never seen anything like it.

'I wasn't [freaked out], if anything I was pretty excited. I've seen photos of them before but I've never seen one before,' he said.

The trawlermen knew they had found something unusual, with another local man 'old Errol' saying he had never seen one in the flesh in all his decades of fishing in local waters.

Luckily, Merimbula had the expertise of the Wharf Aquarium curator Michael McMaster and Alan Scrymgeour, from the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre, on hand.

The fishermen brought the fish in to be examined by the two on Thursday after it was handed over to the aquarium.

Mr Scrymgeour described the shark as belonging to an 'evolutionary dead end', being the only species in its genus, which stopped evolving about 70 million years ago, during the dinosaur era.

He said this specimen would be only two to three years old, given its length of approximately 1.2 metres. Adult goblin sharks grow to a length of 3.8m.

Mr McMaster said very little was known about these elusive creatures, normally found in deep waters around the world.

He said, however, that they find their prey using hundreds of small sensors in their 'nasal paddle' which detect small electrical fields produced by the crustaceans and cephalopods they feed upon.

'Their teeth are often found in underwater electrical cables,' Mr McMaster said.

'A lot of fishermen have been saying that the currents are very different this year,' he added, which might have something to do with how this shark found its way into the net.

Wharf Aquarium will now send the fish to the Australian Museum in Sydney for its Original article here