A deep-sea camera has captured rare footage of a large sleeper shark in Antarctic waters, challenging long-held assumptions that sharks do not inhabit the Southern Ocean. Scientists say the near-freezing depths may host more of the elusive predators than previously recorded.
For decades, marine biologists worked on a simple assumption: sharks do not inhabit the icy waters of Antarctica. That belief has now been challenged by remarkable footage captured in January 2025, revealing a large sleeper shark gliding slowly across the dark seabed of the Southern Ocean.
The shark, estimated to measure between three to four metres in length, was filmed at a depth of 490 metres near the South Shetland Islands, off the Antarctic Peninsula.
Many experts had thought sharks didn’t exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera, researcher Alan Jamieson said this week.
“We went down there not expecting to see sharks because there’s a general rule of thumb that you don’t get sharks in Antarctica,” Jamieson said.
“And it’s not even a little one either. It’s a hunk of a shark. These things are tanks,” he added.
It was found at that depth where sunlight does not penetrate and the temperature hovers just above freezing, recorded at 1.27°C. It was not a fleeting blur on camera, but a solid, unmistakable presence, thick-bodied and unhurried, moving like what researchers described as a “tank” of the deep.
The footage was obtained by a camera deployed by the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre, which investigates life in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, was positioned off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula.
Independent conservation biologist Peter Kyne of Charles Darwin University noted that no shark had previously been recorded so far south. While sleeper sharks are known for their slow movements and deep-water habits, their presence within the boundaries of the Antarctic Ocean marks a significant extension of confirmed range.
The shark maintained a depth of roughly 500 metres, an area believed to represent the warmest layer in a strongly stratified ocean system. The Antarctic Ocean is layered due to contrasting water densities, with colder, denser water below and fresher meltwater above. These layers mix poorly, creating narrow bands of relatively stable conditions that deep-sea species may exploit.
Scientists suggest the shark could have been feeding on whale carcasses, giant squid and other marine animals that sink to the ocean floor. Its scarcity in records may reflect limited observation rather than true absence.
Peter Kyne, a Charles Darwin University conservation biologist independent of the research center, agreed that a shark had never before been recorded so far south.
Climate change and warming oceans could potentially be driving sharks to the Southern Hemisphere’s colder waters, but there was limited data on range changes near Antarctica because of the region’s remoteness, Kyne said.
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