A spooky-looking and exceedingly uncommon young ‘ghost shark’ has been discovered off New Zealand’s east coast in a tiny fishing hole.
Scientists searching for hoki, also known as blue grenadier in Australia, discovered the hatchling Chimaera, which has ‘dead eyes’ and appears to have been sewn together from fragments of other fish.
The creepy infant was discovered at a depth of 1200 meters on the Chatham Rise, a region of the sea bottom east of New Zealand, and was described as a “astonishing” find by a scientist.
The alien-looking species, sometimes known as ratfish, spookfish, or rabbit fish, is rarely seen by humans.
The mystery creature is really an old relative of sharks that separated from them 400 million years ago.
Because it generally dwells in such deep water, up to 2,600 meters, this is the case.
‘You can tell this ghost shark was just born because it has a full tummy of egg yolk,’ said Dr Brit Finucci of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand (NIWA).
‘The majority of deep-water ghost sharks are known adult animals; newborns are rarely documented, so we don’t know much about them.’
However, they are known to be poor swimmers with huge heads that haven’t altered much over millions of years.
Their embryos grow in peculiar egg sacks on the seafloor, where they feed on a yolk until they are ready to hatch.
Males are known to have retractable sexual organs termed a ‘tentaculum’ in their foreheads.
Adults may reach a length of two metres and live for 30 years.
Females lay huge, elongated egg sacs that are covered with horns.
Chimaeras are edible and are sometimes marketed as food.
Guns and delicate tools used to be lubricated with their liver oil.