Animal Diversity Web

Ge­o­graphic Range

Orig­i­nally caught in Japan, the range is wide, but not evenly dis­trib­uted. The ma­jor­ity of known spec­i­mens come from bays of Japan while the rest are mostly found off New Zealand, south­ern Africa, and in the East­ern At­lantic and In­dian Oceans. Two spec­i­mens have been taken off the Mis­sis­sippi and Cal­i­for­nia coasts of the United States. Though this prob­a­bly en­com­passes the range of Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni, sight­ings are so rare and wide­spread that the pres­ence of gob­lin sharks could ex­tend well be­yond these areas. (Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999)

• Biogeographic Regions
• nearctic
• palearctic
• australian
• indian ocean
• atlantic ocean
• pacific ocean

Habi­tat

Gob­lin sharks seem to live in the mid and deep-wa­ter zones of outer con­ti­nen­tal shelves and slopes. (Mar­tin, 1999)

• Habitat Regions
• temperate
• saltwater or marine

• Aquatic Biomes
• pelagic
• benthic

• Range depth

  40 to 1200 m

  131.23 to 3937.01 ft

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni is a fear­some look­ing fish with a large, flat­tened snout pro­trud­ing from the top of its head, and has mov­able jaws than can ex­tend to catch prey. The exact pur­pose of the flat snout is un­known, but as it is not hard or sharp enough to pin or kill prey, it is prob­a­bly used to de­tect the faint elec­tric sig­nals that other fish give off. Gob­lin sharks have rub­bery skin, rather than den­ti­cles (the sharp, pointed scales found on most sharks). Due to the blood ves­sels that are close to the skin, the shark has a pink­ish-grey color in life, though in death it ap­pears quite col­or­less be­cause of its lack of pig­ment. Teeth are slen­der and fang-like, sim­i­lar to those of the sand tiger shark. An­other fea­ture that sep­a­rates gob­lin sharks from most other sharks is the lack of a lower lobe on the tail fin, which is also ab­sent in other ben­thic sharks. Fe­male spec­i­mens seem to be slightly larger than the males. (Berger, 1987; Com­pagno, 1984; Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999; Rorem, 2002)

• Other Physical Features
• ectothermic
• heterothermic
• bilateral symmetry

• Sexual Dimorphism
• female larger

• Range length

  107 to 380 cm

  42.13 to 149.61 in

• Average length

  160 cm

  62.99 in

De­vel­op­ment

Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni de­velop di­rectly from birth, and are prob­a­bly eco­log­i­cally si­m­il­iar to free-swim­ming adults when they emerge from the mother. It is not known at what age they be­come sex­u­ally ma­ture, but are im­ma­ture to about 2.3 m. (Mar­tin, 1999)

Re­pro­duc­tion

There has been no di­rect study of gob­lin sharks in the wild, so there is no in­for­ma­tion on there mat­ing habits.

Gob­lin shark­sare rarely seen, and even more rarely stud­ied in de­tail. Es­sen­tially all known data on gob­lin sharks are from ac­ci­den­tal catches in trawl­ing nets. Thus, since there have been no op­por­tu­ni­ties to ob­serve gob­lin sharks in their nat­ural habit (or even alive for that mat­ter), data on re­pro­duc­tion and be­hav­ior are very scarce. There is no in­for­ma­tion on age at sex­ual ma­tu­rity for ei­ther sex, num­ber of off­spring, or ges­ta­tion pe­riod.

Most sharks are in­de­pen­dent as soon as they are born. This is prob­a­bly not dif­fer­ent in the case of the gob­lin shark. (Mar­tin, 1999)

• Key Reproductive Features
• iteroparous
• gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)
• sexual
• fertilization
  • internal
• ovoviviparous

Though there are no data for gob­lin sharks in par­tic­u­lar, sharks in gen­eral do not pro­vide any de­gree of parental in­vest­ment.

• Parental Investment
• no parental involvement

Lifes­pan/Longevity

No gob­lin sharks have been stud­ied in the wild, so not much is known about their ages or lifes­pans. No in­di­vid­u­als have ever been held in cap­tiv­ity. (Mar­tin, 1999)

Be­hav­ior

Due to its mor­phol­ogy, it is as­sumed that Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni is rather slug­gish and ac­com­plishes most of its hunt­ing by swim­ming lazily or wait­ing for ver­ti­cally mi­grat­ing an­i­mals to come within strik­ing dis­tance. The pro­trud­ing jaws allow sub­stan­tial bites, but oth­er­wise, Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni is not a fast or ac­tive preda­tor. Since it seems to feed on mi­gra­tory fish, it is prob­a­bly ac­tive in the evening and/or morn­ing when the mi­gra­tions are going on, but there are no di­rect ac­counts of feed­ing times. Based on the den­ti­tion and stom­ach con­tents of this shark, sci­en­tists know it is a preda­tor. An­other the­ory has gob­lin sharks ac­tively hunt­ing for ben­thic prey using elec­trore­cep­tors on its en­larged snout (sim­i­lar to ham­mer­head sharks) and using this snout to dig up any prey it de­tects un­der­neath the sand. (Com­pagno, 1984; Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999)

• Key Behaviors
• natatorial
• crepuscular
• motile

Home Range

There are no avail­able data on home range, or ter­ri­to­ries of gob­lin sharks.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Per­cep­tion

Like all sharks, gob­lin sharks prob­a­bly hunt using their senses of smell, sight, sound and the elec­tri­cal sens­ing or­gans called am­pul­lae of Loren­zini. Due to the depth at which they live, eye­sight is prob­a­bly less use­ful than other senses. The snout (which is ab­nor­mally large in Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni) houses the am­pul­lae of Loren­zini which are at­tuned to catch­ing oth­er­wise un­de­tectable prey in dark wa­ters or on the bot­tom.

There is no avail­able data on com­mu­ni­ca­tion within the species. (Com­pagno, 1984; Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999; Rorem, 2002)

• Perception Channels
• visual
• acoustic
• chemical
• electric

Food Habits

Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni ap­pears to feed mid-wa­ter or close to the bot­tom where it uses a com­bi­na­tion of elec­tri­cal sen­sors, smell and (min­i­mal) eye­sight to catch any ver­ti­cally mi­grat­ing an­i­mals that it comes across. It is also pos­si­ble that they stay deep and scan the bot­tom for prey. Stom­ach records are rare, and in­clude parts of squid, fish, os­tra­cods, and crabs. (Com­pagno, 1984; Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999; Rorem, 2002)

• Primary Diet
• carnivore
  • piscivore
  • eats non-insect arthropods
  • molluscivore

• Animal Foods
• fish
• mollusks
• aquatic crustaceans

Pre­da­tion

There are no known preda­tors of the gob­lin shark ex­cept for in­fre­quent Japan­ese fish­er­men. (Mar­tin, 1999)

Ecosys­tem Roles

As it is often dif­fi­cult to de­duce ecosys­tem roles in eas­ily stud­ied en­vi­ron­ments, it comes as no sur­prise that noth­ing is known about gob­lin sharks' role in the mid-wa­ter or ben­thic com­mu­nity be­sides its role as a preda­tor.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni has min­i­mal eco­nomic im­por­tance. Ap­par­ently it is some­times fished com­mer­cially off Japan. (Mar­tin, 1999)

• Positive Impacts
• food

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Neg­a­tive

There are no known ad­verse af­fects of gob­lin sharks on hu­mans.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

The gob­lin shark is rarely found, but not thought to be threat­ened. ("Cites:Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tional Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora", 2004; "U.S. ESA: Na­ture­Serve Ex­plorer Data for Listed Sta­tus in the United States", ; "2002 IUCN Red List", 2002)

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• IUCN Red List

  Least Concern
  More information

• US Federal List

  No special status

• CITES

  No special status

Other Com­ments

Most of the bi­ol­ogy of Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni is un­known due to the rar­ity of sight­ings and spec­i­mens. How­ever, though rarely seen, this shark is thought to be fairly com­mon be­cause of its wide range. Nonethe­less, be­cause it lives in deep wa­ters, is not a com­mon sight for hu­mans. Most of the in­for­ma­tion is par­tial, and de­duced from the mor­phol­ogy of the shark and from sam­ples of the few ex­ist­ing spec­i­mens. Other com­mon names in­clude: imp shark, elfin shark, and ten­guzame(Japan­ese). Dif­fer­ences in ex­ten­sion of jaws in death lead to con­fu­sion over how many species of Mit­suku­rina there ac­tu­ally are. As of now, there is only one rec­og­nized species. How­ever, the ex­tant gob­lin shark is con­sid­ered to be very closely re­lated to a sim­i­lar Cre­ta­ceous shark genus Scapanorhynchus, known from fos­sils. (Com­pagno, 1984; Duffy, 1997; Mar­tin, 1999)

Con­trib­u­tors

David Ar­mitage (ed­i­tor), An­i­mal Di­ver­sity Web.

Matthew Wund (ed­i­tor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Stephen Bizer (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor, Phil Myers (ed­i­tor), Mu­seum of Zo­ol­ogy, Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Ref­er­ences

In­ter­na­tional Union for Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture and Nat­ural Re­sources. 2002. "2002 IUCN Red List" (On-line ). Ac­cessed 03-23-03 at http://​www.​redlist.​org/​.

CITES. 2004. "Cites:Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tional Trade in En­dan­gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 21, 2003 at http://​www.​cites.​ec.​gc.​ca/​default.​cfm.

U.S. ESA. "U.S. ESA: Na­ture­Serve Ex­plorer Data for Listed Sta­tus in the United States" (On-line ). Ac­cessed 03-21-2003 at http://​www.​natureserve.​org/​explorer/​statusus.​htm.

Berger, G. 1987. Sharks. New York: Dou­ble­day.

Com­pagno, L. 1984. FAO Species Cat­a­logue: Vol. 4 Sharks of the World. Rome: United Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme, Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the United States.

Duffy, C. 1997. Futher Records of the Gob­lin Shark, Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni (Lam­ni­formes: Mit­sukurinidae), from New Zealand. New Zealand Jour­nal of Zo­ol­ogy, 24: 167-171.

Mar­tin, R. 1999. "Bi­ol­ogy of Sharks and Rays: Bi­ol­ogy Of the Gob­lin Shark (Mit­suku­rina ow­stoni)" (On-line). Ac­cessed March 16, 2003 at http://​elasmo-research.​org/​education/​shark_​profiles/​m_​owstoni.​htm.

Rorem, S. 2002. "Sea Crea­tures 101: Shark Se­ries: The Gob­lin Shark: Ugly and Rare" (On-line ). Ac­cessed 03-16-03 at http://​www.​suite101.​com/​article.​cfm/​aquatic_​animals/​87679.