A sensational find by a Greek amateur scientist caused a stir in 2020 – he wanted photos of an extremely rare goblin shark in the Mediterranean Sea. But now doubts about the message are mounting – the rare animal could have just been a plastic toy.
Creature discovered on a Greek beach. The animal’s alleged carcass had a long snout, a distinctive head shape and nail-like teeth – which in turn infers the rare nose sharks that have their habitat in the deep sea.
Photos must prove its existence
Although the animals have been sighted repeatedly, none are suspected in the Mediterranean. So Papadakis put his find on a stone, took pictures and sent them to a research group. They saw it as a multi-level breakthrough – and so the discovery was also reported in a scientific study.
The find was considered a successful example of the increasingly important ‘citizen science’ that researchers volunteer to support in their work.
Big doubts about authenticity
But the international professional world did not share the euphoria at all: shortly after publication, numerous experts doubted the authenticity of the find. The fact that a layman’s photo was seen as proof of the sensational find also caused resistance in science. After all, no research has been done on the animal.
Now the explosive suspicion of the critics seems to be confirmed. In March, a Twitter user discovered the product photo of a toy shark from the DeAgostini collection “Sharks & Co” on an online platform – it bears a striking resemblance to the find. In addition to the oddly shaped fins, the product also has about the same number of gills.
Only one embryo found?
In any case, reason enough for the research group to go back and initially change the description of the shark – for example, they corrected the estimated length of the shark from about 70 to only 17 centimeters; it should be an embryo, it was then said. But doubts were also expressed: “A goblin shark embryo of this size is not viable,” German shark researcher Jürgen Pollerspöck told “watson.ch”.
That was probably too much for the authors: they felt compelled to withdraw the study altogether – the article is no longer available online.
Discovery would be a “massive surprise”.
But even if the discovery turned out to be fake, the existence of goblin sharks in the Mediterranean wouldn’t be entirely unlikely. It is therefore possible that a small population in the deepest regions has been able to hide from humans. Because of the intensive fishing in the Mediterranean, such a find would be “a huge surprise”, says Pollerspöck.
Source: Krone
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