“Hundreds of meters below the surface lurks a predator older than the dinosaurs and bigger on average than the great white,” writes OceanX in a YouTube video caption. “This is the story of a group of scientists who came together to achieve the unthinkable: tagging the cryptic bluntnose sixgill #shark in its natural environment using a submarine.”
Though the footage is from 2019, the video of a bluntnose sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus) exploring a deep-sea submersible (and the scientists’ reaction from within) is recirculating online. It’s pretty incredible to see this massive, strange-looking shark up close.
[RELATED: Deep-Sea Fisherman Catches a Fish That Looks Like an Alien]
The bluntnose sixgill shark is a large, deepwater shark with “a broad, flat head, large green eyes, and a small, single dorsal fin far along its back.” These animals are typically 15-16 feet long, but they can grow to be up to 18 feet long. Scientists know relatively little about this species, since it lives at depths.
OceanX said during this trip, scientists were able to tag an animal from a submersible for the first time ever. In the past, OceanX said scientists were only able to tag these cryptic sharks (and others) by bringing them up to the surface.
Watch a sixgill shark check out a deep-sea submersible here:
And here’s the full-length version of the video:
“Six Gill Shark investigates MIR I Submersible, 1990.” Header stock image by Ralph White/Getty Images