As the name of the species suggests, a megamouth shark is quite a rare sighting. But group of Japanese fishermen were able to caught Megamouth shark off the coast of Japan from a depth of around 800m.

The current sighting is the 58th recorded sighting of the species in history of humankind. The rare shark was dissected in front of 1,500 onlookers and is now at display at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka City, Japan.
This megamouth shark is 4m long and weighed 680kg. Scientists are expecting to extract valuable information about the species, which in future would help them better understand the shark.

Its name signifies its strangely large head and mouth. The species can grow up to 5.5m and is considered to be the smallest of the three-plankton eating sharks besides the whale shark and basking shark. The structure of the shark, skinny body and giant mouth, gives an appearance that the creature is alien.

The animal spends almost its entire life swimming at great depths and comes to the surface at night to feed. Its key prey is krill, a look alike of shrimp. It also feeds on planktonic animals including euphausiid shrimps, copepods and the Pancake Jellyfish.

The first ever sighting megamouth shark was when it got caught at a depth of 165m off the coast of Hawaii. At that time, its teeth became caught in the anchor of a large research vessel, shared The Museum of Western Australia. Its specimens are in California, South Africa, Brazil, Australia and the Philippines.