A San Diego marine biologist enjoyed a rare encounter recently with a bizarre-looking shark that typically inhabits extremely deep Pacific waters.
Cali Lingle, a Scripps Oceanography graduate student, was night diving with Liam Dougherty at La Jolla Cove when they spotted what Lingle initially thought was a sevengill shark.
Prickly shark passes through dive lights.
“I thought the shark was a sevengill at first, but I saw two dorsal fins and the shark looked at least 7 feet long,” she stated via Instagram. “Turns out this shark is extremely rare to see by divers because they commonly swim in deeper waters, closer to 300 to 2,000 feet down!”
It was a prickly shark, named because of thorn-like denticles on their bodies and identifiable by two dorsal fins positioned at their rear.
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Lingle described the encounter as amazing, adding: “It felt like discovering a new species at first because none of us knew of the shark beforehand.”
The footage, captured by Dougherty, is posted below.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Rarely seen prickly shark encountered during night dive off San Diego