image credit: discovery channelSize: Over 10 ft. in length
Habitat: Mostly waters of Japan, Southern Africa, New Zealand
Max Age: UNKNOWN
This adorable fella is called a Goblin shark and it spends its days casually swimming at depths greater than 200 meters, relaxing in complete darkness – until it finds some prey and suddenly protrudes its jaws, while using a tongue-like muscle to suck the victim into its sharp front teeth.
That’s right. That sucker just detaches its entire jaw in order to snap up some delicious squid, crab, or other deep sea fish. That’s some serious snaggle-tooth. This is the last remaining species in the family Mitsukurinidae, and honestly I can understand why no one wanted to mate with that thing. Yeesh. There have only been 45 Goblin Sharks described in scientific literature ever & no one knows how old these things can live to be. Watch there be this million year old shark hanging out at the bottom of the ocean and no one even knows about it yet.
Check out this video of the Goblin Shark extending it’s jaws after the jump.
