Scientists just discovered a weird new shark that glows in the dark, so they officially named it the 'ninja lanternshark'
Dr. Douglas Long and Ross Robertson / JOSFMeet the new queen of unusual sharks.
Say hello to the ninja lanternshark, a species of shark that has only just been discovered.It's really weird. It hides in the deep - and its black skin keeps it camouflaged - but it also glows in the dark.
The ninja lanternshark was discovered by a team at the Pacific Shark Research Center, in Moss Landing,
California. Its official latin name is Etmopterus benchleyi, after Jaws author Peter Benchley. But its common name was coined by the cousins of researcher Vicky Vásquez. The four of them, aged 8 to 14, suggested "super ninja shark" but she scaled it back, according to Hakai magazine.
The ninja lanternshark is roughly half a metre, or 18 inches long, and it lives at a depth of about 1,000 metres off the Pacific coast of Central America. Its odd combo of dark and light helps it creep up on its prey, Vasquez believes.
The discovery, reported in a recent edition of the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, gives us an opportunity to update our list of the world's best sharks, ranked by unusualness. Scroll on!