Deepest shark

The deepest-living species of shark known is the Portuguese dogfish (Centroscymnus coelolepsis) with a range extending to a depth of 3,700 metres (12,139 feet) below the surface. This seabed-dwelling species of sleeper shark is distributed in oceans globally.

In an article to National Geographic in May 1958, French naval officer Lieutenant Commander Georges Houot wrote of an unidentified species of dogfish being photographed at more than 4,000 metres deep. “It would not be an exaggeration to assert that dogfish come to pay us a visit at each dive, but I have seen them off Toulon as well as 13,287 feet deep in the Atlantic. It is easy to see from photographs that these small sharks resemble rather closely their relatives at the surface, but their eyes are very big and globular, like two hemispheres bulging from their heads.”