Elusive Sailback Shark Rediscovered After 50 Years

Elusive Sailback Shark Rediscovered After 50 Years

Elusive Sailback Shark Rediscovered After 50 Years Sagumai et al. / Journal of Fish Biology, 2025 Every so often the animal kingdom just throws out a curveball that we’re not prepared for—like in 1970 when fishermen reeled in a freakish-looking shark and then it was never seen again. Well 50 years later, that shark—so unique that it was declared a new genus—has finally been found again, confirming that the fishermen’s encounter wasn’t just a well-remembered dream. Meet the sailback houndshark, believed to be endemic to the water’s of Papua New Guinea, and perhaps even to a single stretch of ocean called Astrolabe Bay. A group of fisherfolk reported that 5 of the sharks had been caught while a team of scientists were on the island conducting research for the country’s National Plan of Action on Sharks and Rays. They had been caught incidentally at the mouth of a river that drains into the Astrolabe Bay, but had been sold as secondary catch since the meat is not prized by locals. Two years l…