Massive Shark Found in Antarctic Waters for First Time

Sharks in Antarctica weren't supposed to be a thing. Most experts thought the water was too cold, too isolated from where sharks thrive. Then, in January 2025, a camera 1,600 feet deep off the South Shetland Islands near the Antarctic Peninsula captured something nobody expected: a sleeper shark, cruising slowly and unbothered through pitch-black, near-freezing water.

This wasn't small either. The shark stretched between 10 and 13 feet long, moving through water that registered 1.27 degrees Celsius — basically 1 degree above freezing. And this shark? Completely at home.

Adult sleeper sharks, which are closely related to Greenland sharks, live at the bottom of the ocean, says meteorologist and marine scientist Sara Tonks. This particular shark was actually photographed in the warmest layer of water for the region, she explained.

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Here's the thing: we probably wouldn't even know about this if it weren't for the uptick in deep-sea research cameras. The Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre operates cameras in some of the most extreme, hard-to-reach ocean depths. Most only function during the Southern Hemisphere summer, December through February, giving us just a narrow window into what's down there. Without that tech? This shark stays hidden.

Alan Jamieson, founding director of the research center at the University of Western Australia, said he couldn't find any record of another shark documented in the Antarctic Ocean. Peter Kyne, a conservation biologist at Charles Darwin University, confirmed it: no shark had ever been recorded this far south before.

So why now? Could climate change and warming oceans be pushing sharks into colder waters? Maybe. But data is limited because the region is so remote. It's also possible these slow-moving sleeper sharks have been here all along, unnoticed. The population is likely sparse, and at 1600-plus feet deep, in a heavily layered ocean, they're not easy to spot.

The shark held steady at that depth because it sits in the warmest water layer. Below, water gets colder and denser. Above, fresh meltwater from ice creates another barrier. The Antarctic Ocean is stacked like a cake, and this shark found the sweet spot.

Jamieson expects other sleeper sharks are down there feeding on whale carcasses, giant squids and deep-sea creatures that die and sink. But with so few cameras at that exact depth, operational only a few months a year, we're barely scratching the surface of what can be seen.

A skate, a shark relative that looks like a stingray, also appeared in the frame, unbothered by the passing predator. Scientists already knew skates lived there. The shark? That was the headline.

This is what happens when you put cameras where nobody's looking. Sharks in Antarctica? Confirmed. The question now: what else is down there we haven't seen yet?