The big-eyed shark was pulled lifeless from the sea off the Australian coast with a protruding white mouth and teeth and a pointed nose that looked like a dog. Trapman Bermagui from Sydney was baffled by his incredible catch from 2,133 feet underwater. The photo shared on social media caused an uproar online as users commented on its appearance and tried to confirm what it was. Social media users commented on the sharks ‘bulging eyes’ (Trapman Bermagui/Facebook) Since posting a snap of the predator’s head on Facebook on Monday, it has been liked more than 1,000 times and commented on by about 250 people. One person reacted: “It’s the stuff of nightmares.” “He looks very happy to have just taken off his braces and is showing off his gums and teeth,” added a second. A third even suggested that it wasn’t a real shark at all, they said: “Man made… either a sculptor or DNA mixing with the help of the crisper…. Giving his own verdict Mr Bermagui said: “They are not biscuits at all. It is a rough-skinned shark, also known as a type of dog shark. “These sharks are common at depths greater than 600 meters. We usually catch them in the winter.” Dean Grubbs, associate director of research at Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory, weighed in as well. He told Newsweek that the species appears to be Centroscymnus owstoni, also called roughskin dogfish. “In my deep-sea research, we’ve caught quite a few of them in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bahamas,” Mr. Grubbs said. “Ours have come from depths of 740 to 1160 meters (~2,400 to 3,800 feet), so deeper than this report. They belong to the family Somniosidae, the Sleeper Sharks, the same family as the Greenland Shark, but apparently a much smaller species.” Christopher Lowe, professor and director of the Shark Lab at Long Beach State University in California, offered a different view. “It looks to me like a deep-sea kitefin shark, which is known in Australian waters,” he said, although he noted that he could not see the full body or size of the shark. “It looks like a Dalatian lata to me. However, we are constantly discovering new species of deep-sea sharks, and many are very similar to each other.” According to the Dalatias lata Shark Research Institute, sharks prefer deep water, hovering near the sea floor at depths of up to 1,800 meters (4,950 ft) in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
