Video: “T-Rex Of The Water” – Ancient Deep Sea Shark Filmed By Scientists

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Cover Image from The Amazing Sizing Up Sharks, The Lords Of The Sea

A rare Bluntnose Sixgill shark has been tagged by scientist in its natural habitat and captured on film in an amazing encounter.

Bluntnose Sixgill sharks, (also sometimes called Cow sharks), are the largest type of hexanchoid shark, an ancient line that has remained unchanged for 150 million years, dominating the ocean from a time before most types of dinosaurs. And they can get big, growing to 6.1 metres (20 feet) in length.

Chlamydoselachus anguineus 3.jpg — Frilled Shark – an extinct type of hexanchoid shark

The expedition to find and tag the ancient beast was made up of scientists from the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Gavin Naylor, one of the team spoke of the encounter; “It was like seeing a T. rex in the water”.

“This lineage has been around for 100 times as long as Homo-erectus, the ancient ancestor of humans, and these sharks haven’t changed that much.”