The first published live observations of the rare goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) in its natural deep ocean habitat were reported in a new paper by a University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa-led team of oceanographers. In the past, goblin sharks were only filmed and reported alive after being hooked on a fishing line and hauled to the surface, where divers could observe them and where they soon died. The new study , published in Journal of Fish Biology, documents two live observations of one of the most elusive but iconic sharks on the planet—one at a seamount near Jarvis Island and another on the slope of the Tonga Trench.
Goblin sharks are sometimes referred to as "living fossils", as they are the only living representative of their family, a lineage of sharks that is nearly 125 million years old. These newly-reported observations extend their known depth range and geographic range significantly.
“Seeing the most iconic of all the deep-sea sharks alive and looking healthy in its natural habitat is a unique honour,” said Aaron Judah, lead author of the paper and doctoral candidate working in the Deep-Sea Fish Ecology Lab and Deep-Sea Animal Research Center (DARC) in the Department of Oceanography at the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology . “I was also very surprised about how deep this species was found. The observation from the slope of the Tonga Trench is nearly 700 meters deeper than this species was known to live.”
In fact, Judah noted, this observation extends the depth record for the entire order of Lamniformes, the mackerel sharks, which include other notable species such as the white shark, basking shark, and mako shark. Previously, the goblin shark was only known to inhabit narrow areas off the coast of the western U.S., Australia, and Japan in the Pacific Ocean, and narrow regions in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The new findings, therefore, significantly extend the geographic range, with both sightings being made in the Central Pacific.
In 2025, Judah spoke with colleagues at DARC who mentioned there had been a potential goblin shark sighting during a 2019 Ocean Exploration Trust expedition aboard the E/V Nautilus exploring deep-sea ecosystems near Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, and Jarvis Island within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
“I was shocked to hear this because this species was not to be known to be in the Central Pacific,” said Judah.
The footage on that cruise was captured using a camera system on the remotely-operated vehicle Hercules, publicly archived for global access, and later annotated by colleagues at DARC at UH Mānoa. Judah combed through this archive and discovered that, in fact, the team had documented a goblin shark during the livestreamed dive on an unnamed seamount northwest of Jarvis Island.
The second observation was made during an expedition to the Tonga Trench which took place in 2024 aboard the R/V Dagon as part of the Inkfish Open Ocean Expedition led by scientists from the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center , when a baited camera on a bottom lander captured footage of a goblin shark in their natural habitat.
“The Goblin Shark is one of these deep-sea charismatic animals that I never thought we’d see alive, and then to do so was amazing, but to then learn that colleagues in Hawai’i also saw one was just incredible,” said Alan Jamieson, professor and founding director at Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center and study co-author who documented the 2024 sighting.
“It is really important that we still perform natural history work,” Judah emphasized. “New discoveries like this demonstrate that there is still so much to explore in our deep ocean home. Given the newly-expanded geographic range of the goblin shark, this species can be included in regional management and a nationʻs biodiversity list, whereas, beforehand we didnʻt know it was even there!”
Journal of Fish Biology
Observational study
Animals
First in situ observations of the goblin shark Mitsukurina owstoni
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.