Ghost sharks and chimaeras! Happy Halloween!

1 min read

marine biology biology ghost sharks science nature
Narrownose chimaera (Harriotta raleighana), also known as a spookfish. This is not the new species (Harriotta avia) because there aren't many good pictures of them in the wild. Sorry. (Image credit: NOAA Okeanos/wikimedia)

I recently learned about GHOST SHARKS!

A paper published this year (Finucci et al., 2024) announced the discovery of Harriotta avia, a new species of ghost shark native to New Zealand and Australia. I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Dominique Didier, who helped discover them! She was super helpful, a ton of fun, and clearly very passionate and excited about what she does. She helped teach me about ghost sharks in general and spoke with me about the process of finding, documenting, and announcing a new species.

Check out the short here (transcript) and the full video here (transcript)!