First smalltooth sandtiger shark filmed in Ascension Island

A smalltooth sandtiger shark was filmed at 765 m depth, leaving a tooth on the hydrophone tape wrapping the researchers were using.

It is known that mature females can reach 4 meters length but there is very little information on Odontaspidid sharks, as on the Odontaspis ferox. Listed as Vulnerable under the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), they have a circum-global but irregular distribution, associated with deep shelf edges and upper slopes of continents. Richardson et al. believe that remote seamounts, such as Grattan in the Ascension Island, are important habitats for these rare sharks.

Check the full paper at the latest edition of @Arquipelago - Life and Marine Sciences (www.arquipelago.info).