A HALF-BLIND arctic shark has been spotted in the Caribbean, leaving fishermen left puzzled by the “unusual” creature.
This shark species typically lives in Arctic waters but was discovered thousands of miles away off the coast of Belize.
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A doctoral candidate at Florida International University’s Predator Ecology and Conservation lab made the discovery while working with local fishermen in Belize.
Devanshi Kasana told FOX Weather that the shark appeared at the end of one of the fishing lines.
The old-looking creature appeared to be sluggish, eliminating the possibility that it was a tiger shark.
“At first, I was sure it was something else, like a six-gill shark that are well known from deep waters off coral reefs,” Kasana told FOX Weather.
“I knew it was something unusual, and so did the fishers, who hadn’t ever seen anything quite like it in all their combined years of fishing.”
Kasana shared the discovery with her advisor, who is the director of Sharks & Rays Conservation Research at Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Florida.
They determined that the shark was likely a Greenland shark.
But the possibility remained that, because of its size, the creature could also be a hybrid Greenland shark and Pacific sleeper shark.
The Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium said that not much is known about Greenland sharks, FOX Weather reports.
The species has been known to live for round 400 years.
As a result, the half-blind shark is a slow-growing species.
While it remains unclear how or why the shark wound up in Belize, Kasana offered an explanation.
She told FOX Weather that while the species is typically found in cold Arctic waters, it’s possible that the deep waters where the shark was found could have been cold enough for it to survive.
