I used to think goblin sharks were just internet hoaxes—like those deep-sea “monsters” that turn out to be regular fish photographed at weird angles.
Turns out, they’re real, and they’re about as alien as anything swimming in our oceans. Mitsukurina oweni, to use the proper name, lives at depths between 890 and 3,150 feet, give or take, which is well beyond where most recreational divers ever venture. The pressure down there is crushing—literally hundreds of pounds per square inch—and the light that filters down is so dim it’s basically twilight at best. These sharks have adapted to a world we can barely imagine: cold, dark, and utterly indifferent to whether humans ever find them. Their most famous feature is that extendable jaw, which shoots forward to snatch prey in what looks like a nightmare made flesh. But here’s the thing—this hunting strategy only works in an environment where food is scarce and you need to grab whatever passes by, however it passes by.
The goblin shark’s habitat is the main reason we rarley see them. They inhabit the mesopelagic and bathypelagic zones, which are fancy terms for “really deep” and “even deeper than that.” Commercial fishing operations sometimes dredge them up by accident, usually off the coasts of Japan, Australia, and the Gulf of Mexico, but these are flukes.
The Technology Gap Between Humans and the Deep Sea
Wait—maybe I should back up. We’ve explored more of the moon’s surface than we have the deep ocean. That’s not hyperbole; that’s just embarassing for a species that claims to be curious. Submersibles that can reach goblin shark territory are expensive, rare, and usually deployed for research missions with very specific goals that don’t include “let’s go film some ugly sharks.” ROVs—remotely operated vehicles—have captured footage occasionally, but the deep sea is vast, and goblin sharks are solitary hunters. You could spend months down there and never cross paths with one. The odds are just stacked against casual encounters, even for scientists with funding and equipment.
I guess it makes sense that a creature this specialized would avoid us. Goblin sharks are ambush predators, not curious browsers like great whites or tigers. They don’t patrol shipping lanes or hang around coral reefs where divers might spot them. Their bodies are soft and flabby compared to surface sharks—an adaptation to deep-sea pressure that makes them poorly suited for aquarium life, even if we wanted to display them. The few that have been caught alive died within days, sometimes hours. They’re built for a world we can’t replicate.
Why Goblin Shark Sightings Remain Scientific Oddities Rather Than Tourist Attractions
Honestly, I find it kind of comforting that there are still animals we can’t easily catalog or commodify.
The goblin shark’s elusiveness isn’t a mystery in the Loch Ness Monster sense—it’s just biology meeting geography. They live where we don’t, they hunt in ways we can’t easily observe, and their physiology doesn’t tolerate captivity. Every specimen that surfaces (dead or alive) adds a tiny piece to our understanding, but we’re still working with incomplete data. Scientists estimate their population size based on bycatch records and occasional deep-sea surveys, but nobody really knows how many are out there. Could be thousands, could be tens of thousands. The deep ocean keeps its secrets, and the goblin shark is one of them—not because it’s hiding, but because we’ve barely begun to look properly. Some species just exist on their own terms, in places we haven’t figured out how to reach without extraordinary effort. And maybe that’s fine. Maybe not everything needs to be dragged into the light and photographed for Instagram. Though I’ll admit, if I ever saw one in person, I’d definately try to get a picture.
