Shark filmed for first time in Antarctica’s near-freezing depths

MELBOURNE

A large sleeper shark has been filmed for the first time in the icy depths of the Antarctic Ocean, overturning long-standing assumptions that sharks do not inhabit the region’s frigid waters.

The shark, estimated to measure between 3 and 4 meters in length, was recorded in January 2025 at a depth of 490 meters, where the water temperature was just 1.27 degrees Celsius. The footage was captured by a camera operated by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula, well within the boundaries of the Southern Ocean.

Researchers said many experts had believed sharks were absent from Antarctic waters. “We went down there not expecting to see sharks,” said Alan Jamieson, founding director of the center. Describing the animal as a “hunk of a shark,” he said the sighting was both unexpected and significant.

Independent conservation biologist Peter Kyne of Charles Darwin University said there was no known previous record of a shark documented so far south.

The slow-moving sleeper shark appeared to maintain a depth of around 500 meters, likely remaining within a relatively warmer water layer created by the Antarctic Ocean’s strongly stratified structure. Scientists say the region’s waters are heavily layered due to differences in temperature and salinity, limiting vertical mixing.

Climate change and warming oceans could potentially influence shark distribution, Kyne noted, although data on species range shifts near Antarctica remain scarce due to the region’s remoteness and limited deep-sea monitoring.

Jamieson said sleeper sharks may have long existed in Antarctic waters undetected, possibly feeding on the carcasses of whales, squid and other marine life that sink to the seabed. Research cameras in the region operate only during the Southern Hemisphere summer, leaving much of the year unobserved.

The discovery underscores how little is known about life in the deep Southern Ocean and suggests Antarctica’s marine ecosystem may be more complex than previously thought.