Greenland Sharks
Article and Photographs by Nick Caloyianis
Two weeks of storms had kept underwater photographer Nick Caloyianis on shore on Baffin Island, Canada, and frustrated his attempts to take the first photographs of the little studied Greenland shark.
But, diving in the 28-degree water at the end of the expedition, Caloyianis finally saw something: "A dull outline formed in the murky distance. It was a long animal. Huge. My diminished senses perceived it to be a narwhal, without its unicorn-like tusk.
"Forget the cold. I kicked my fins and swam toward the shadowy figure. It turned and began moving toward me. I was face-to-face with a Greenland shark. I’d seen drawings and paintings of the fish, but this was utterly different. It was ghoulish. Its nostrils were the largest I had ever seen on a shark. They reminded me of a giant double-barreled shotgun. Its mouth was slightly open, revealing rows of small sharp teeth. Its eyes looked fogged over, like those of a dead fish, and from each one dangled a tasseled parasite."
Lurking beneath the Arctic ice, these huge sharks consume seals and other large prey as if they were morsels. For the first time these sluggish, nearly blind creatures are photographed in their frigid habitat.
NGM 1998/09