Goblin Shark Spotted in Surprising Habitat: Update from an Expert
Sometimes, we don’t realize what discoveries we’ve made until many years later! That’s the story of this remarkable goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) sighting by the Corps of Exploration using ROV Hercules in 2019 within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. During Ocean Exploration Trust’s expedition NA110, the ROVs dove on a never-before-explored seamount northwest of Jarvis Island, capturing this moment with one of the most elusive but iconic sharks on the planet.
It wasn’t until recently, when University of Hawai’i at Mānoa PhD candidate Aaron Judah, working at the Deep-Sea Fish Ecology Lab and Deep-Sea Animal Research Center, was annotating the footage, that he positively identified this as a new in-situ observation of the species in its natural habitat. This represents a massive range expansion for the species, now known to live beyond the edges of the Pacific Basin and on seamounts. Learn more about this sighting and Aaron’s new paper published in the Journal of Fish Biology in this update from an expert interview.
Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, and Jarvis Island
Deep waters in the remote central Pacific remain some of the most poorly studied environments on Earth. This expedition will focus on exploring deep-water features in the vicinity of Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, and Jarvis Island within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The waters of these remote Pacific territories are among the least explored U.S. holdings in the Pacific Ocean.
