Megamouth Sightings

Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Date: July 9, 2009

Sex: M
Length: 539 cm
Disposition: This megamouth was reported beached on the shoreline, appearing to have died of natural causes.
Source: Ulisses Leite Gomes of Rio de Janeiro and Alex Buttigieg of Malta

Article

Photos courtesy: scienceblogs.com.br/caapora

On 9 July, an adult male Megachasma pelagios – rare shark described for the first time in 80 years – was found beached and dead newborn in Praia Grande, Arraial do Cabo (RJ), by Brazilian researchers who subscribe to this article. The specimen represents the 47th M. pelagios known in the world and only the third recorded in the Atlantic Ocean. A young animal had been captured off the coast of Sao Paulo in 1995 and another found in the same year in Dakar, Senegal.

The discovery was made during one of the regular monitoring conducted by the Project Beach Birds, Marine Mammals and Turtles of the Campos Basin, conducted by the National School of Public Health, Fiocruz, habitats within the Project – Environmental Heterogeneity in the Campos Basin, coordinated by Research Center (Cenpes) from Petrobras.

With 5.39 m in length, the specimen appeared to have died of natural causes, since there were no marks that could be attributed to the net capture or collision with a motor boat. The autopsy showed that the shark’s stomach was completely empty, which may indicate that he was not eating for a while.

According to Luciano Lima and Bruno Rennó, authors of the discovery and researchers of the Project Marine Birds, Turtles and Mammals from the Campos Basin, the Megamouth is considered one of the rarest sharks in the world. Despite its large size, reaching up to 6 meters in total length and an unmistakable appearance due to its enormous head resembling a tadpole, the species was only described in the early 80’s. Biologists say that another particularity of such species is its gentle behaviour, much probably related to its feeding strategy, preying upon tiny zooplankton, captured just like whales do.

Location: Philippines

Date: March 31, 2009

Sex: M
Length: 400 cm?
Disposition: This megamouth shark was sold for human consumption.
Source:
Elson Q. Aca
Project Manager
Whale Shark Tracking in Donsol, Sorsogon Project
World Wide Fund for Nature – Philippines (WWF-Phils)
Email: eaca@wwf.org.ph
Mobile Nos.: +63 918 9220738
+63 921 2188811

Article

Megamouth shark in Whale Shark waters

Photos © Elson Q. Aca

Every year whale sharks visits Donsol to feed on Burias pass’ plankton rich waters. And now, we have documented another filter feeding shark in these waters but in a most unfortunate circumstance.

In the morning of March 30, 2009 fishermen from Donsol caught on their gill nets a megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios) while fishing for Alumahan (Rastrelliger kanagurta) and Tulingan (Auxis rochei) on the eastern coast of Burias island on the waters of Burias pass. Already dead and unable to put the shark on board, they tied it up and dragged it to Barangay Dancalan, Donsol, Sorsogon.

People have been notified and news reached WWFPhilippines office in Donsol in order for proper identification and documentation of the catch. Elson Q. Aca, project manager of the Donsol Field office, responded to the call to investigate on the matter.

Upon reaching the site, the fishermen were cooperative in giving out information about the catch and even help out in measuring the shark. Mr. Aca provided necessary information about the shark and answers questions of the onlookers about its existence. It was also an opportune time to interview fishermen about the regularity of the catch and it seems that in the 1970s or 1980s a similar animal was caught in the area, butchered and eaten by locals. No other detailed information was gotten from that shark.

The recent shark measures four (4) meters long and roughly 400-500kg was a male and has some cuts near the left side of the mouth. It was accidentally caught in the eastern side of Burias island with a depth of approximately 200 meters using a gill net. The stomach content was investigated and saw several balaw (shrimp larvae) inside. The fishermen continued chopping the shark for distribution and probably for selling. Mr. Aca recommended that the shark would not be consumed since the reason of its death is not known. Possibility of a disease may be transferred to humans when the meat is digested. However, shark and ray meat cooked in coconut milk, chilli pepper and malunggay is a local delicacy called kinunot. The selling of any shark meat in the area cost around Php 40 to 70 per kilo and the ironic thing was, it would cost much cheaper if it comes from a shark that is not well known like this one coming from a megamouth.

This incident only put emphasis the importance of these waters in terms of biodiversity of its marine life. We don’t however want to these animals as part of just some statistics like those of a megamouth whose identification is based on just the number of sighting/stranding (less than 50). Ample protection should be taken because it could be a haven for the two (of three) filter feeding sharks namely the whale shark and megamouth. Megamouth shark presence isn’t surprising if you consider the existence of food in the area. Who knows in the future the basking shark (the other filter feeding shark) will find its way to these waters too. Let’s continue to provide them a healthy environment so that we could pass on our children a living planet (and not the one they only read on books as part of history).

Location: Tortugas Bay, west coast of Baja California, México

Date: November 16, 2006

Sex: F
Length: 214.9 cm
Disposition: On display at Regional Fisheries Center of Ensenada, located in Mexico.
Source:
M. en C. José Leonardo Castillo Géniz
Centro Regional de Investigación Pesquera de Ensenada
Instituto Nacional de la Pesca
Carr. Tijuana-Ensenada km 97.5
El Sauzal de Rodríguez, A.P. 1306
Ensenada. B.C., Mexico. Phone: (646) 174-6135 y 174-6140
ptiburon@yahoo.com.mx

Article

The First Megamouth Shark, Megachasma pelagios, Found in Mexican Waters

Photos by José Leonardo Castillo-Geniz

On November 16, 2006, the crew of the F/V “Corina del Mar” (a commercial shark boat based in Ensenada, B.C., Mexico), under Captain Edén Magaña, and his crewmen Eleazar Murillo, Jesús Molina y Samuel Van-Borsted, accidentally caught a “very rare” shark in waters in front of Tortugas Bay (BCS), on the Pacific coast of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico.

After their return to the Port of the Sauzal in Ensenada, convinced of the rarity of the shark, and its possible scientific importance, the owner of the ship Saúl Romero and the Captain Magaña invited José Leonardo Castillo-Géniz, a shark specialist from the Ensenada’s Regional Fisheries Research Center of the National Fisheries Institute of Mexico, on November 27 to examine and possibly identify the shark species. According to the shark biologist Castillo-Géniz, he observed the elongated and flabby body of the animal, its particularly huge and terminal mouth, and a group of black circular spots over its “inferior lip” of its jaw. These observations gave him the first hint about the possible identity of the specimen, and some minutes after the initial shock from the excitement, he identified the shark and confirmed it as the first record of the megamouth shark (“tiburón bocón” in Spanish), Megachasma pelagios to be captured and documented in the waters off of Mexico.

According to Captain Magaña, the megamouth was captured off Tortugas Bay, in B.C.S., Mexico. This is a region that also includes Cedros Island and Sebastían Vizcaíno Bay in the western coast of the Baja Peninsula and is considered by the fishermen as a traditional fishery ground for sharks, including makos Isurus oxyrinchus, and thresher sharks Alopias vulpinus.

With the support of the local fishery company “Pesquera Cortés”, the megamouth was frozen and conserved immediately for posterior examination. In the morning of November 28th, a team of technicians and students (Arturo Ocampo, Carmen Rodríguez, Alfonso Medellín, Ely Cuevas, Miguel Olvera, Santa Rodríguez, Erick Oñanate, Omar Santana, Jenny Chong y Nadia Olivares) from the fishery ecology laboratory of CICESE, lead by Castillo-Géniz, conducted the first examination of the shark. The specimen was determined to be an immature female with a total length of 214.9 cm and body weight of 27 kilograms. Several morphometric measurements were taken as well as samples of the stomach content, teeth, and dermal denticles. This information and data will be generated in the next weeks, allowing specialists to describe in detail the first record of Megachasma pelagios in Mexican waters. Given the stage of sexual immaturity of the shark, the shark team decided not to conduct a dissection of the body, because there is the intention of maintaining the shark intact for future public exhibition in Mexico.

The presence of the megamouth shark confirms the enormous diversity of sharks and rays that inhabit in Mexican waters.

Location: Barangay Namocon, Tigbauan, Iloilo, Philippines

Date: November 4, 2004

Sex: F
Length: 504 cm
Disposition: Stranded on beach
Source: TU Bagarinao
Curator, SEAFDEC FishWorld
SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department
Tigbauan, Iloilo, Philippines

Article

Photos © Isidro Tendencia, AV Technician of the SEAFDEc Aquaculture Department

A female megamouth shark 504 cm long and about 1 ton in weight was stranded on the beach of Barangay Namocon, Tigbauan, Iloilo, Philippines around 5 pm on 4 November 2004. SEAFDEC FishWorld was informed of the stranding the next morning. I immediately recognized the very rare megamouth, and my heart skipped a beat. The megamouth is a recent scientific discovery, the first one having been caught off Hawaii in 1976 and described as Megachasma pelagios by L. Taylor, L. Compagno, and Struhsaker in 1983. The one stranded in Namocon is the third recorded in the Philippines, and only the 26th specimen recorded from around the world, according to Dr. George H. Burgess, Director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, Florida Museum of Natural History (http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu). The formalin-preserved carcass is now specimen AQDM2004 of the fish collection of FishWorld at the Tigbauan Main Station of the SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department.

Megamouth #24 was still alive when it was stranded and the Namocon fisherfolk tried to push it back to sea. But it would not swim out again. Barangay Captain Fred Talaman called the media and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources. The TV crew of ABS-CBN News arrived at the scene and took footage for broadcast the next evening. Hanani Torilla of BFAR did not recognize the megamouth as such, and he advised Captain Talaman to bury the shark (generic local name, ‘bagis’). Crowds gathered around the shark at the beach. The megamouth died at about 10 pm on 4 November. Hector Zayco, proprietor of Sol y Mar Beach Resort, near the site of stranding, called FishWorld the next morning.

I told Captain Talaman that the megamouth was a special and rare shark and that I would like to take care of it at FishWorld, rather than have it buried at the beach. So an outrigger motor boat was arranged and the megamouth was towed about 4 km from Namocon to the SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department. Then it had to be carried by 16 fishermen from the beach to what I thought was a ‘cold room’ at the pilot feed mill. It turned out that the cold room was only airconditioned (coldest at 16 C) and was too small for the shark, and had feed ingredients that would be contaminated. Meanwhile, the 16 fishermen had to go, and the megamouth could not be taken across the highway to FishWorld. So now it lies in 10% formalin in a one-ton fiberglass tank outside of the feed mill. I will have it transferred to FishWorld once we find a proper container for it. It was so easy to decide to keep it, but the logistics of keeping it is turning out to be really difficult.

The first megamouth (5.5 meters long, male) recorded in the Philippines (#11 in the world), was caught in Macajalar Bay off Cagayan de Oro on 21 February 1998 and reported by J. Morrissey and E. Elizaga in the journal Philippine Scientist 36: 143-147 (1999). The second megamouth (5 m long, sex undetermined) from in the Philippines (#18 worldwide) was caught by set gill net also in Macajalar Bay on 6 January 2003. Both specimens were eaten by the fisherfolk.

Megamouth #24 was washed ashore dead in Tokyo Bay, Ishihara, Japan, on 19 April this year.

I had informed Dr. Domingo Madulid of the National Museum of the Philippines and Dr. Paciente Cordero of the National Research Council of the Philippines about the megamouth. I thank Dr Lawrence Liao of the University of San Carlos, and Dr. Kazuya Nagasawa of the SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department for providing some information on the megamouth.

Location: Posorja Port, Guayas, Ecuador

Date: March 8, 2004

Sex: M
Length: 420 cm
Disposition: Sent to market
Sources: Miguel Romero and Justo Liza Santa Cruz
Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE)

Article

Megamouth Caught for First Time in the Pacific Ocean off the Coast of South America

Photos © Mr. Justo Liza Santa Cruz

On the morning of March 8, 2004 at 7:00 am, personnel of the Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE) were carrying out scientific research on board the Ecuadorian tuna fish ship “BETTY ELIZABETH” when they observed a small artisan craft, also of Ecuador, in trouble. It was inclined on the right side of starboard and in its trammel net (placed the day before) was a very large and heavy fish. It was impossible for the crew to bring up such a large fish. The “BETTY ELIZABETH” assisted them by tying a rope on the base of the caudal fin of the large specimen and raising the trammel net.

The fish made movements as the net was rising so we thought it was still alive. The fish was observed regurgitating its food consisting of a variety of fishes, mainly the Engraulis ringens “peruvian anchovy”. The specimen was placed on the deck of the small craft with difficulty because its total length was longer than the width of the craft.

The captured specimen was male with a standard length of 4.20 m (from the extreme of its mouth to the base of the caudal fin) and an approximate weight of 600 kg. The fishermen of the small craft told us they were going to take off the fins, head and innards, to cut the fish in filets for human consumption and taken to market in Punta Salinas (Ecuador).

The capture took place at 02°54.374′ S and 81°14.858′ W, at 41.6 nautical miles of the coast, in front of the Posorja Port, Guayas, Ecuador, close to the Peruvian border. In the zone of capture, young specimens of Engraulis ringens “peruvian anchovy” were observed, with approximate total lengths of 7.0 cm, in groups like “spots”. The surface temperature of the sea was 23.6° C. At the moment the fish was captured, the sea was calm, with a light fog and sunshine at the same time.

The photos attached to this report are the only registries of this capture. The species was identified later as Megachasma pelagios “megamouth shark” in the Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE). This report is the first record of this rare species in the Southeastern Pacific region and is the 22nd discovered world-wide.

Artisan ships mainly dedicated to the fishing of Coryphaena hippurus “common dolphinfish” with trammel nets and some tuna fish ships using purse seines are observed in this zone. The crew of the tuna fish ship “BETTY ELIZABETH” said this was the first time this rare species was observed in spite of all the years they have dedicated to fishing, at 19° S 50° N and 130° W.

We thank Mrs. Rita Horta Ali, Chief of Research Technical Scientific Office of Instituto del Mar del Peru (IMARPE) for the facilities to carry out this report.

Miguel Romero Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE) Esquina Gamarra y General Valle. PO Box 22 Callao – Perú Email: mromero@imarpe.gob.pe

Location: Hualien Province, Taiwan

Date: July 3, 2003

Sex: M
Length: ~250 cm
Disposition: Consumed

Article

Translation of Japanese article by Victor Lin, courtesy of Henry Mollet
July 4, 2004
Permission granted from Henry Mollet

Hualien Province fisherman, Li, caught a weird fish that looks like a shark at Ki-Lei-Bi sea yesterday; and even the local fishery department officer cannot tell what fish it is. According to Li, who has been fishing for over 40 years, he has never seen a fish like this. Other fisherman also think it is weird. An owner of a seafood restaurant near the dock has bought the fish, and this weird fish ha become a talking topic among fisherman.

According to Lin, he and his son took their fishing boat to 800 m off Ki-Lei-Bi coast at 5 am last morning, to retract the net they had set a day earlier. When they grabbed the net, the weird fish showed up surprisingly. After they took the weird fish back to the dock, those who saw the fish were all astonished.

The fish is about 2.5 m long and weighed 490 kg. Its appearance is very similar to a shark, but it has lips on both jaws. The mouth can open wide and the teeth are tiny and set close together. And these characters are not like those of sharks. Nobody can tell what fish it is. Some fisherman say its mouth looks like a lion, so let’s call it a Lion Shark; some say it has lips so thick and called it an Elephant Shark/

Li, who is 66 years old, says he has never seen such a weird fish after fishing over 40 years.

Chen, who owns a seafood restaurant near by and is now 70+ years old, said he had seen one at Southern Bay Dock about 40-50 years ago and nobody knew which fish it was then. He never expected that he would see it again after all these years in Hualien. However, the identity of the fish still remains unknown.

The fish was finally bought by the seafood store. After gutting, they found the stomach of the fish empty and concluded that this fish mainly fed on tiny fish. It saw some fish stuck in the net and wanted to have a meal and then got caught itself.

Location: Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Date: August 30, 1998

Sex: Unknown
Length: ca. 5 m.
Disposition: Swam away
Sources:

Pietro Pecchioni
Kuda Laut Project
Manado, North Sulawesi
Indonesia
www.kudalaut.com
ppecchioni@hotmail.com

Carla Benoldi
Department of Zoology, University of Milano, Milano, Italy.
cbenoldi@cibra.unipv.it

Supported by WWF Italy – whale watching program – Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Article

Sperm Whales Spotted Attacking Megamouth Shark

Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, 30th August ’98, 10:00 am – we were studying the whale population with a group of WWF Italy volunteers off the coast of the island of Nain in the Bunaken archipelago (124° 50′ 3″ N, 1° 46′ W) when we witnessed a remarkable event. While looking for cetaceans we encountered three examples of Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) “attacking” a shark. As our boat approached, the 10-12 meters long, the Sperm whales swam off.

At this point we clearly saw the profile of a large shark (about 5 meters). The base of the dorsal fin and the gills showed signs of the whales’ attack and the shark was swimming slowly and still rather bewildered at the surface. It was probably a planktivorous shark with a large head in proportion to its body. It had white marks on the tips of its fins and mouth and a dark triangular mark under its throat. The upper lobe of the caudal fin was very large. We had found an extremely rare specimen of Megamouth shark (Megachasma pelagios)!

Megamouth sharks are plankton-feeder deep sea animals. It is very rare to meet and observe them near the surface where they usually come only at night, following small crustacean preys. Sperm whales are usually considered squid feeders but there are a few notes about small deep sea sharks’ presence in their diet.

Since the last sighting of Megachasma pelagios (the eleventh) in Cagayan de Oro (Philippines) on 21st February 1998, this is one of the few sightings in open sea as opposed to animals that were stranded or caught in fishing nets. It is also a significant event for studies of the relationship between whales and sharks – was it an attack, playfulness or just curiosity that attracted the Sperm whales to the Megamouth shark?

Ed. Note: This is actually the 13th record of the megamouth shark. Number 12 was captured on 23 April, 1998 in the waters south of Japan very near the site where megamouth shark number 10 was taken. (see Yano, K., Tsukada, O. and M. Furuta. 1998. Capture of megamouth shark number 12 from Atawa, Mie, Japan. Ichthyological Research 45 (4) : 424-426). This is the second report of a cetacean attacking a shark in the space of one year.

Location: Dana Point, California, U.S.A.

Date: October 21, 1990

Sex: Male
Length: 494 cm TL
Disposition: Tracked
Sources: Lavenberg, R. J.

Article

by Tom Haight
All photos © Tom Haight

Like so many people, as a teenager I became fascinated by the oceans after reading a book called “The Silent World” written by the late Jacques Cousteau. I knew that I had to explore the oceans and enjoy the peace and serenity it offers to those who try to capture the untold beauty it represents.

If you are like me, I am sure that you dream of doing something that has never been done before. If you are lucky you will never stop the dreaming, because sometimes those dreams do come true.

On October 22, 1990 my dream became reality. I shot underwater photographs and video of a living megamouth shark.

The summer of 1990 in Southern California was one full of surprises brought on by ocean temperatures that were warmer than usual. Some of the unexpected treats were large schools of yellowtail, dorado, trigger fish and a few sea turtles. Naturally the biggest surprise of all was the living megamouth shark.

Megamouths are so rare that they were not known to exist until the first one was discovered off the coast of Hawaii in 1976. Four more specimens were discovered off the coasts of California, Australia and Japan prior to the Dana Point megamouth, but none had lived long enough to be studied or photographed alive.

I was at my Capistrano Beach home editing slides of baby Garibaldi, a local fish, when a friend called to tell me that a live megamouth had been accidentally captured in a local fisherman’s drift net. This would be the sixth megamouth seen by man. When he hauled up the net, the fisherman knew that he had something unusual and he towed it seven miles by the tail, back to Dana Point Harbor. It was there in the harbor that it was finally identified as the rare megamouth shark. Dr. Don Nelson, a shark behavior expert at California State University in Long Beach, was summoned to come down. He planned the radio tagging, study and release of the shark.

“That thrill of a lifetime” came at 1:30 P.M. when I slipped over the side of my boat and finally saw the shark. The shark was approximately 15 feet long and weighed about 2,000 pounds. The mouth was about 3 feet wide, big enough for a small diver with gear to swim into. This megamouth, like the previous five, was a male, which was evident by the claspers on the underside of the shark. These gentle giants of the deep feed on krill and plankton so even though they have many vestigial teeth they are not considered a threat to larger animals.

As we approached, the shark seemed to welcome our attention and showed no apparent signs of nervousness, which is more than I can say for the divers in the water, including myself.

I spent nearly four hours in the water with the shark, and I was lucky enough to not only capture the event with still photos and video footage, but also to assist in the studying, tagging and releasing of a creature that is hardly ever seen by man.

During that time we used a length of rope with equally spaced knots to measure the length and circumference of the shark.

Naturally we had to take some tissue samples of the shark in order for the marine biologists to try to determine if it was healthy.

Two transmitters were attached to the shark – one to track it vertically in the water column and the second one to track it horizontally.

We were constantly touching this strange visitor who was usually at a depth of about 450 feet during daylight hours. He did not seem to mind our prodding, but rather tolerated us as if we were just a part of his daily routine.

After all the measurements and tissue samples were taken and the transmitters were attached, the rope that restrained the shark by the tail was finally severed. It was exhilarating to see him swim slowly and calmly away from us to the safety of the deep.

The radio transmitters that allowed him to be monitored for the following three days revealed a vertical migration pattern. From dawn to sunset he swam slowly at 450 to 500 feet into the prevailing current, apparently feeding on krill that were at that depth during the daytime. From sunset to sunrise he ascended to 39 to 46 feet below the surface to feed on the krill as they also ascended. The extreme daylight depth could explain why the megamouth shark is so rarely spotted. Dr. Nelson stated that the tracking of the vertical migration was one of the most significant shark research events in modern history.

Since the Dana Point megamouth in 1990, eleven more have been seen, but none photographed alive underwater. For me, this once-in-a-lifetime encounter with a rare visitor from inner space was definitely the high point of my 40 years of diving. So please, keep on dreaming. Your dream could be the next one to come true.

Contact Tom Haight: tom@oceanimages.com

Location: Oahu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

Date: November 15, 1976

Sex: Male
Length: 446 cm TL
Disposition: Bernice P. Bishop Museum (Honolulu, Hawaii)
Source: Taylor, L. R., Compagno, L. J. V., and Struhsaker, P. J.

Article

by Hugh Gallagher
Photos © Hugh Gallagher

On November 15, 1976 I tied a figure-8 slip knot around the caudal peduncle of a megamouthshark resulting in its capture. This was the first recorded specimen of this order, family, genus and species ever taken. The fish was totally unknown before this day.

This event went unheralded for many years because it was a classified operation for the U.S. Navy. The Cold War was still on and we were monitoring Soviet submarine activity. We deployed a sonar array three miles long at a depth of 500′ over a three day period. At each deep end were sand bags to keep it down and a parachutes, acting as a sea anchors, to prevent the array from fouling into a bird nest. The array had a retrieval line attached to it, leading to the surface with a buoy on it for recovery.

The mission was ending and all we had to do was retrieve the gear. But the shark ate one of the parachutes – he must have thought it was a food source. The parachutes we were using had alternating orange and white panels. I don’t know if that had any special significance because of the 500′ depth. At 100′ red and orange colors are lost, at 300′ blues and greens are lost and any colors then turn to purple; it gets pretty dark after that.

I was a civilian contractor (for the Naval Undersea Center at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Air Station on Oahu. I was a crewman on a semi-submersible platform (SSP) called the SSP Kaimolino, a SSP prototype that was always breaking down.

If there was a special irony in this for me, it was that I’d just been fired.

This was my last day on the job.I was to return to the Hawaiian sport fishing trade, where I’d been working as a deckhand for the previous three years.

On board the TRB was a scientific team from the University of Houston. They had developed a long range sonar system and were trying to sell it to the Navy. We were over thirty miles north of Oahu, well off the 1,000 fathom ledge, on the abyssal plain.

A word about this sonar apparatus might be of interest. Powered by pieso-electric crystals, one element sent out signals and another element would receive the echoes through the same antenna. We actually had a little dingy on the surface tethered to the array. In its watertight hull was housed a 10 hour reel-to-reel tape machine to record the receiver’s data. We would recover it at the end of each day – it was a three day project. These strong signals go until some subsea structure breaks them up and disperses them. In this case from the Hawaii area to the Japanese Isles, the Aleutian Isles and half way to the continental US west coast, but the mid-Pacific ridge scattered the signals.

Swimming into this web of technology came a hungry 16′ shark. He had eyes the size of softballs to pierce the purple gloom, both jaws dotted with phosphorescent photophores that glowed to attract krill (small shrimp-like creatures) and a tongue the size of a man to gulp down whatever he could lure. He also had two claspers for mating (I guess he needed a spare). These claspers can be seen in the first photo when he’s lying on the sloping deck of the TRP. There is also a deep crease visible where the original 5/8″ Dacron line I used to originally catch him bit into his caudal peduncle. The photo is a bit of an optical illusion due to the sloping deck of the TRB – I really don’t have the legs of a dwarf.

Spotting a cloud of “krill”), he gobbled it down. But this mushy cloud trapped him by getting hung up in his tiny teeth. They were only ¼” mako-type teeth but there were 10 rows of them, 100 each per row. He choked on the parachute!

So this is the end of the last day of a three day project and we can’t get the gear in. We had plenty of hydraulic pressure, the retrieval winch was working, but completely bogged down, and it acted as though we were fouled on the bottom. There was a 500′ column of water on top of this guy holding him down. This goes a long way to explain why no previous specimens were found. Living that deep, they’d just sink when they died.

One second there was a bunch of us blankly staring into a cobalt-blue sea wondering what to do and the next the whole mess boiled out of the water. The shark surfaced twisted up in the parachute – all I saw at first was the tail. The upper lobe of his 6′ thresher tail hissed through and parted the air like the sword of Damocles. We scattered like bowling pins. The engineer disappeared into the engine room and I never saw him again. He may still be there.

Thinking Captain John Hobbs might like to be advised of this recent development, I went to the wheelhouse. Word had preceded me.

“What have we got there, Gallagher?”

“It’s a shark all right”.

“Well cut it loose, we’re running late and heading for the barn”. .

Before I cut the beast loose to his watery grave, I wanted to have a look at him. What were they going to do? They’d already fired me.

After three years of catching big tuna, marlin and frisky mahi’s, I knew my way around a back deck. No gaffs were on board so I got our only tool – an 8′ boat hook. This was a real solid Navy thing with a strong oaken handle and a silicon-bronze head. Taking aim and making sure I could dodge that wicked tail, I let it fly like a harpoon right into his side, point blank. If he had any life in him I wanted to know before, not during, my removal of his shroud.

Using the boat hook I peeled the parachute off his body. He just kept getting longer and longer. When he first came up only that big tail was exposed. The caudal peduncle was bigger than my waist.

The pectoral fins were 6′ long and hung off him like those on a humpback whale. The main body was long, slender and graceful. But that head had to be the ugliest thing I’d ever seen; half of his weight seemed to be in that head. I saw his eyes were rolled and he was a goner. But he did look magnificent.

Since nobody had a clue as to what it was, the skipper changed his mind and the task began on how to get him in; we were going to be late now anyway.

I was the only one with any experience handling big fish, so I kept after him. While another deckhand sat on my calves, I hiked over the side and tied a figure-8 slip knot out of 5/8″ Dacron line around his caudal peduncle. We cleated off the bitter end and he swung around, head downstream. Seawater flushed through his gills and washed the parachute out of his mouth. We buoyed it and recovered it later. We held that fish on that line for over an hour and it sang like the e-string on my mandolin.

Being the lame-duck, coal-passing, fired-deckhand that I was, nobody was paying my other landing ideas much attention. They finally listened to me but not before we had a go at dragging that Rock-of-Gibraltar head-first up the ramp using the retrieval winch designed by the lead scientist for the project. That task failed miserably.

We then bent a two-legged bridle onto my 5/8″ line; one leg to the aft deck project retrieval winch; the other leg forward, all the way to the bow anchor winch capstan. We then idled down swell, got a little way on, stopped, backed momentarily and took up slack on the winches. We washed him into the boat. At last his chin rested on the edge of the ramp. We tied him off with at least a dozen lines. I’ll never forget threading lines through his gill slits and out his mouth to secure him. He was twitching for hours – but we were both shuddering.

The wheelhouse conversations on the way in were unbelievable. The lead scientist immediately laid claim to the jaws but by the time we got in, I had him talked into a full body mount. Never mind that he’d have to build a new wing on his house to display him.

We got in well after dark but there was a fair crowd waiting, including an official US Navy photographer. This brought to mind the best trick I ever learned in the sport fishing business: always get in the pictures!

Good thing too. Since nobody remotely knew what we’d caught, it was decided to bring out some ichthyologists from the University of Hawaii or Bishop Museum the next day.

We weighed him in at 1,660 pounds with a hydraulic scale attached to a crane and visible in photo #1. We then lowered him into Kaneohe Bay for the night. The next morning, as he was being raised, the tail parted from the body and he slid back into the bay. So the boat crew got in the only decent pictures taken of him.

He got whisked away to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu where he now rests in his own crypt of preservative. They later turned down a request from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC for the specimen.

Because of the Navy’s security net around the mission, nothing was written up about either the capture or an explanation of the type of fish it was. After several years of silence, I remembered another trick from the sport fishing business and contacted the International Game Fish Association (IGFA). I sent along my own set of ‘official US Navy photographs’ and filled out the paperwork for the world record.

I was going to need a new jacket for all my new patches…but they told me the parachute exceeded their maximum line class of 130 pound test. They did give me a nice write-up in their newsletter though.

Megamouth Sightings

Confirmed Megamouth Shark Sightings

There have been 273 confirmed occurrences of megamouth sharks around the world and we are investigating reports of additional individuals.

The following sightings are listed by date:

San Diego, USA| September 11, 2022

Location: San Diego, USA

Date: September 11 2022

Camiguin, Philippines| July 31, 2022

Location: Camiguin, Philippines

Date: July 31 2022

Sorsogon, Philippines| June 11, 2022

Location: Sorsogon, Philippines

Date: 11 June 2022

San Roque, Philippines| December 29, 2021

Location: San Roque, Philippines

Date: 29 December 2021

Tateyama Bay, Japan| June 14, 2021

Location: Tateyama Bay, Japan

Date: 14 June 2021

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 03, 2021

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 03 June 2021

Leyte, Philippines| May 28, 2021

Location: Leyte, Philippines

Date: 28 May 2021

Lianjiang, China| March 13, 2021

Location: Lianjiang, China

Date: 13 March 2021

Hualien County, Taiwan| August 07, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 07 August 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| July 11, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 11 July 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| July 11, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 11 July 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 18, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 18 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 17, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 17 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 16, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 16 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 16, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 16 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 15, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 15 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| June 15, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 15 June 2020

Tateyama, Japan| June 11, 2020

Location: Tateyama, Japan

Date: 11 June 2020

Buenavista, Philippines| June 06, 2020

Location: Buenavista, Philippines

Date: 06 June 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| May 30, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 30 May 2020

Hualien County, Taiwan| March 31, 2020

Location: Hualien County, Taiwan

Date: 31 March 2020

Liberia| March 26, 2020

Location: Liberia

Date: 26 March 2020

San Diego, USA | October 23, 2019

Location: San Diego, USA

Date: 23 October 2019

Paita, Peru| October 16, 2019

Location: Paita, Peru

Date: 16 October 2019

Paita, Peru| October 14, 2019

Location: Paita, Peru

Date: 14 October 2019

Hualien County, Taiwan| August 18, 2019