Ghost Shark Sports a Shorter Snout and a Very Long Head Start

Ghost sharks earn their name honestly: pale, deep-dwelling and ancient, part of a lineage that diverged from sharks and rays hundreds of millions of years ago. One ghost shark that has been minding its own business in the Pacific off Costa Rica is now named and cataloged thanks to student research.

Formally naming Rhinochimaera costaricana required decades of scattered specimens and advances in genetic analysis that made it possible to separate it from closely related species. Biology student Naidely Valeria Vidaurre Quesada led the research using three male specimens collected between 2000 and 2023, meaning one sat in a museum collection for over two decades before anyone realized it represented a new species. The ocean floor is not a fast news cycle.

The fish were found at depths ranging from 390 to 787 meters (about 1,280 to 2,580 feet). The Costa Rican species is distinguished by a dark brown body with nearly black fins, a shorter snout, a taller spine on the first dorsal fin, wider spacing between dorsal fins and fewer tubercles in the caudal region. Researchers validated the findings by comparing 49 body measurements against data from more than 90 individuals across three previously known Rhinochimaera species. Vidaurre Quesada also traveled to the Natural History Museum in London to review historical global archives and confirm the species was genuinely new to science.

The discovery adds to growing scientific concern that many deep-sea species may disappear before they are ever documented.

The ocean has been doing the paperwork on R. costaricana for hundreds of millions of years. Humans finally signed off on it.

Read the full story at Newsweek, June 24, 2026

Hot Take: A biology student leading the formal description of a new species is exactly the kind of story that should be handed to every undergrad who's been told there's nothing left to discover. The deep sea begs to differ, and apparently so does the UCR Museum of Zoology.