Frilled shark
Chlamydoselachus anguineus
Size, compared with you
You: 1.7 m. Frilled shark: 2 m.
Person-sized. Grows up to about 2 m.
An eel-like shark of the deep sea, with frilly gill covers and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth. Its family goes back an enormous way, so it is often called a living fossil.
The weird bit
A frilled shark may carry its babies for up to about three and a half years, one of the longest pregnancies of any backboned animal.
Quick facts
- Where it lives
- Deep seaDown to 1,570 m
- What it eats
- Mostly squid, plus smaller sharks, bony fish and sinking carrion
- How worried are we?
- Doing okay (Least Concern)Assessed in 2015 by the IUCN Red List.