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MapSpeciesParksDiving
  1. Bluntnose Sixgill Shark

Bluntnose Sixgill Shark (Hexanchus griseus)

Cartilaginous fish · Hexanchiformes · Hexanchidae

Bluntnose Sixgill Shark

Hexanchus griseus

Near Threatened

It could become threatened in the near future if current threats go unchecked.

Spotted something wrong?

The bluntnose sixgill shark is one of the most primitive large sharks alive: it retains six pairs of gills instead of the five of most modern sharks, a feature of its Jurassic ancestors. It can exceed five metres and makes daily vertical migrations of hundreds of metres.

Weight

200 kg – 600 kg

Size

3 m – 5.5 m

Life expectancy

80 years

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Nocturnal

Active mainly at night.

Social structure

Solitary

Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.

Sighting difficulty

Moderate

Ocean
162countries59parks10dive sites

AI-generated images: illustrations, not photographs.

Fun facts

  • anatomíaIt retains a more primitive number of gill slits than most living sharks — six rather than the usual five — a trait it shares with some very ancient lineages.
  • It retains six pairs of gills instead of five, a feature it shares with the sharks of the Jurassic and that places it among the oldest lineages of living sharks.
  • It rises and falls hundreds of metres every day: it spends the day in the darkness of submarine canyons and climbs at night into shallower water to hunt.
  • It is one of the longest-lived and slowest-breeding large sharks: it does not mature until it is past twenty, which makes it extremely vulnerable to deep-sea fishing.

Life cycle and biology

Skeleton type
Vertebrate - cartilaginous skeleton (fish)
Habitat and environment
Continental slopes and submarine canyons of every ocean, between 200 and 2,500 metres
Sexual maturity
25 years
Gestation / incubation
More than 12 months of gestation
Litter / clutch size
70 live young

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexanchus_griseus

Where to find it

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Where to see it

Parks and dive sites where this species has been documented — showing 20 of 69.

Related species

Other species in the catalogue with the most in common with Bluntnose Sixgill Shark — same habitat, park, country, tags or family.

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Based on what we already know about bluntnose sixgill shark.

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Home
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One of the 26 sharks on WAnimals
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The pins mark the parks and dive sites where its presence is documented.

See its range on the interactive map→
TeideSpain
CalanquesFrance
Cinque TerreItaly
Alonissos and the Northern SporadesGreece
RedwoodUnited States
OlympicUnited States
Glacier BayUnited States
Channel IslandsUnited States
Pacific RimCanada
Gwaii HaanasCanada
El Hierro / La RestingaSpain
Browning Pass (Vancouver Island)Canada
HMCS Nanaimo WreckCanada
Monterey Bay (Point Lobos)United States
Puget Sound (giant Pacific octopus)United States
Azores (Princess Alice Bank)Portugal
Neah BayUnited States
Great Bear RainforestCanada
OsezakiJapan
Sagami BayJapan
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Sea Bass

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SwordfishNear Threatened

Swordfish

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Edible Sea UrchinNear Threatened

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CountriesSpain
ParksTeideSpain
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Carnivore
Nocturnal
Solitary
Near Threatened
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