The goblin shark is a species lives largely in the open ocean. It primarily inhabits a range between the ocean's surface and as deep as 1300 meters. Researchers believe that it only comes near the surface during the night, leaving them in darkness for most of their lives.
The goblin shark is one of the most interesting looking animals of the marine biome. Dissimilar to most other sharks in the ocean, it has a shovel-like snout. Along with its unique snout, its mouth can quickly extend and retract to and from its usual resting place to help quickly capture prey. These sharks can grow up to 3.9 meters in length. While easily larger than a human, the goblin shark is nowhere near the largest kind of shark.
| Shark | Length (m) | Weight (kg) |
|---|---|---|
| Whale Shark | 20 | 20000 |
| White Shark | 6.4 | 2270 |
| Hammerhead Shark | 6.1 | 449.5 |
| Sand Tiger Shark | 3.2 | 159 |
| Goblin Shark | 6 | 210 |
Note: table uses maximum recorded values, not averages.
The skin of the goblin shark is translucent, leading the sharks to appear in a range of white or grey to pink. The muscles and bone structure underneath this translucent skin are weak and poorly developed due to its nature of lingering in the deeper waters of the marine biome.
Due to the generally poor development of its muscle and skeletal structures, and the lack of energy rich food in the depths in which it lives, the goblin shark hunts its prey slowly to conserve energy. The shark will slowly move towards its prey, and once in range, it will extend its jaw to capture the prey before it can be detected. Due to the lack of light in the deeper parts of the marine biome, the goblin shark also hunts prey using a unique sense. They hunt with the high density of ampullae of Lorenzini (electroreceptors) in their snout which they use to detect the heartbeats of other creatures in the deep marine biome. Once these little electroreceptors detect prey is in range, the jaw extends at 3.1 meters per second.
Information about the goblin shark is based on the few sightings that have been recorded. Only around 50 goblin sharks have been sighted and officially recorded. Due to this low sample size, data may not be entirely accurate to the entire species.