Extremely Rare ‘Megamouth’ Shark Caught On Video Off Indonesia

July 28, 2017

An extremely rare shark known as a “Megamouth” shark was captured on film by a diver swimming near Komodo Island. While Indonesia’s Komodo Island is best known for its rare monitor lizard, the Komodo Dragon, British diver Penny Bielich caught a glimpse of yet another rarity.

According to FoxNews, Bielich was swimming near the island’s Gili Lawa Laut diving spot when she saw the ginormous megamouth shark. The British diver immediately grabbed her camera and was able to take close-up footage of the rare shark.

Megamouth sharks, or Megachasma Pelagios, are an extremely rare species that aren’t often seen by divers and marine biologists alike. In fact, there are only under a hundred of these rare sharks that were spotted ever since the species was discovered 41 years ago.

Little is known about the megamouth shark other than the fact that it has an enormously large mouth with small teeth. The rare species is considered to be a filter feeder and is known for consuming smaller creatures such as krill or plankton.

Despite its massive and intimidating size, megamouth sharks are generally harmless to humans. Furthermore, the megamouth’s size seems to be a lot different today that it was centuries ago.

While most animals are known to be a lot larger during the prehistoric era than they are today, this is not the case for the megamouth shark. According to LiveScience, the megamouth used to be as small as 4.2 feet some 36 million years ago.

Unlike the megamouth sharks of today, their oldest relative had slightly larger teeth and are known to prey on small fish instead of tiny krill. While the modern megamouth shark appears a lot larger now at about 18 feet in length, it’s quite ironic that their prey have become a lot smaller as well.

Feature Image via YouTube/Storyful News

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