The New York Times
The goblin shark is a deepsea fish whose terrifyingly long jaws served as inspiration for the terrifying creatures in the Alien film series. Little is known about these elusive, rarely seen sharks. They are known to live in deep coastal waters around the world but have never been found in the Mediterranean.
But recently, scientists reported that they had found a goblin shark washing up on a Greek beach. The announcement, made in the journal Mediterranean Marine Science last year, sparked a series of events almost as bizarre as the species itself, including conflicting scientific narratives, a retraction and the possibility that a plastic toy is causing all the confusion has.
According to the original scientific paper, the Mediterranean goblin shark was discovered in August 2020 by a man named Giannis Papadakis. After finding the animal, he placed it on some rocks and took a picture. The image ended up in the hands of a group of local scientists, who published it two years later, along with records of another species found in the Mediterranean.
The article seemed to describe a success of citizen science, where people with no scientific background support professional scientists in their research. But it wasn’t long before shark experts around the world began voicing doubts about the goblin shark’s authenticity in a Facebook group.
“It just didn’t feel right,” said David Ebert, author of Sharks of the World. According to him, several aspects of the shark found in Greece were unusual.
“He’s too small. Its gills don’t look open,” he said. “It doesn’t look natural at all.”
Ebert and others were also skeptical because no scientist had studied the shark directly. The article was based solely on a photo and brief description by Giannis Papadakis.
In November, a group of shark researchers published a commentary article questioning whether the goblin shark found in Greece was a real animal.
“We have doubts” and “It is a natural specimen,” it said. The researchers argued that the lack of teeth, overly rounded fins, and small number of gill openings were not characteristic of goblin sharks.
Shortly thereafter, another picture was shared on social media, which increased skepticism enormously. It was a photo of a plastic goblin shark sold by an Italian toy company, DeAgostini, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the animal found in Greece.
Could not speak to toy maker DeAgostini.
For Jurgen Pollerspock, a shark researcher and one of the authors of the article that cast doubt on the authenticity of the Greek goblin shark, the toy bears “close resemblance to the specimen in the published image.”
In response to the concerns raised by Pollerspock and his colleagues, the authors of the original paper reiterated their claims. They also corrected their estimate of the specimen’s size from 76 cm to 18 cm, suggesting it may be an embryo.
“Embryos that size are not viable,” Pollerspock replied.
This week, the authors of the original paper retracted it, admitting there are too many uncertainties surrounding the discovery. Contacted via email, one of the authors declined to answer further questions.
That ended a nearly yearlong saga that had many shark researchers questioning what they were seeing on their computer screens.
Pollerspock said it’s possible goblin sharks lurk in the depths of the Mediterranean, but none have been found so far.
Regardless of whether the shark in this image turned out to be an actual fish or was nothing more than a piece of plastic pollution, critics say the fact that the image was published in a scientific journal highlights the imperfections of the scientific peerreview process .
“In my opinion, the problem and the responsibility lies with the journal publisher and the reviewers,” said Pollerspock.
In his opinion, the shark’s unusual appearance wasn’t the only thing that should have alerted the scientific journal’s reviewers to the possibility of a problem. The fact that the claim made in the article is based solely on an image provided by a citizen scientist would warrant closer scrutiny.
The editor of Mediterranean Marine Science did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether or not the researchers who published the nowwithdrawn paper on the Greek goblin shark admit to releasing the photo of a toy, Ebert said he wouldn’t be surprised if something like that were to happen again, given the problems with peer review and the intoxication plastic pollution of the oceans.
“Anything is possible,” he said.
Translated by Clara Allain