There are loads of unknown (to science) deep sea sharks out there, most of them quite small. A friend of mine in grad school spent several trips on a deep sea trawler out of Madagascar and described multiple new species.
Sometimes the first opportunity to see something occurs while you are actively destroying the habitat where it lives. Sounds like your friend's work took advantage of the access that deep sea trawlers would have to species unknown to science, allowing them to have a rough idea of their distribution. In a sense this is very useful to researchers who can argue the case that trawling is too destructive for that area due to the presence of species new to science.
Trawling and mining, both activities mentioned in the article, can be very destructive to habitats. With the global race to lock up sources of rare elements and elements that are more commonly found in conflict zone nations the sea floor is seen as the best source for some of these. The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean just as those fishing fleets strip the oceans of wild fish species.
> The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean
This (and the concept of extinction credits) is an opening plot point in the book “Venomous Lumpsucker”, which I found a good read.
No one is mining manganese from the sea floor. The whole idea was a CIA cover story for a mission to recover a sunken Soviet submarine that the Americans knew the location of but the Soviets didn't. They needed an explanation for a cargo ship headed out to a specific area with deep sea construction equipment on board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian
Wow! It's amazing how little it seems we've explored of the deep ocean, whenever I hear about it. A whole other world down there, lying in wait... the frontiers of our own planet have yet to be conquered!
Probably, most sharks have nictitating membranes to protect the eye, but this family of sharks didn't evolved one apparently. In any case, they can avoid easily the light source swimming away.
Trawling and mining, both activities mentioned in the article, can be very destructive to habitats. With the global race to lock up sources of rare elements and elements that are more commonly found in conflict zone nations the sea floor is seen as the best source for some of these. The manganese nodules that I learned about in geoscience classes decades ago are targeted by miners today who will have no qualms about scraping the seafloor clean just as those fishing fleets strip the oceans of wild fish species.
This (and the concept of extinction credits) is an opening plot point in the book “Venomous Lumpsucker”, which I found a good read.
Or
s/conquered/discovered/
...
the article: Goblin sharks have never before been filmed in their natural habitat
Surprisingly bad headline.
https://openai.com/index/where-the-goblins-came-from/
Strange. I thought it was glided, or at least glode
They are synonyms
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/yeah-nah_adv
2. Goblin penis soup.