The frilled shark is a rare species that dates back 80 million years ago, and it is one of the rarest species in the world. That is why citizens were shocked when one was caught in a fishing trawler off Australia’s coast.
The frill shark is often called a living fossil, and its outer appearance looks like a creature out of a horror movie. Those may mistake the creature for an eel because its body is slender and extends out at 6 feet in length. It has 300 teeth in 25 rows, but has three fins on its back, and it gets its name because of the six pairs of gill slits it has.
It is believed that it looks like a snake when closing in on its prey, it slowly wraps it’s body up in a coil shape, like that of a snake, and then pounces when the meal is close enough.
Simon Boag, the chief executive officer at South East Trawl Fishing Association, told Australia’s ABC Rural, “It’s a freaky thing. I don’t think you would want to show it to little children before they went to bed.”
David Guillot, the captain of the Western Alliance Vessell, told radio station 3AW Drivem that it was unlike any creature he has ever seen in the ocean. That may be because the frill shark usually lives an estimated 2,296 feet below the surface. He states, “I’ve been at sea for 30 years and I’ve never seen a shark that looks like that. It was like a large eel, probably 1.5 meters [5 feet] long, and the body was quite different to any other shark I’d ever seen.”
The creature’s face is truly terrifying and would startle any fisherman or human who lays eyes on it. Many are unfamiliar with the species and have never heard of it before, but this is a prefect example as to how large our world is and how organisms that we may never inhabit every corner of the Earth in our lifetimes.
