For an animal that has existed on Earth for hundreds of millions of years, sharks are remarkably good at keeping secrets.

We know of hundreds of shark species living everywhere from warm coral reefs to freezing polar seas, yet scientists are still discovering new species, new behaviours and even completely unexpected places where sharks live.

And 2026 has already been an extraordinary year for shark science.

Researchers have filmed one of the strangest sharks on Earth alive in its natural habitat, discovered another species of shark that practically walks, uncovered genetic clues that may explain how a shark can live for centuries, and even started using sharks as swimming weather stations to help understand hurricanes.

Some of the latest shark discoveries sound more like science fiction than marine biology.

Here are nine of the most fascinating.

1. Scientists finally filmed a living goblin shark in its natural deep-sea habitat

Imagine a shark with a flattened sword-like snout, pinkish skin and jaws capable of shooting forward from its face.

That animal is real.

It is the goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni), one of the strangest sharks in the ocean.

In June 2026, researchers from the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre and the University of Hawaiʻi reported the first live observations of goblin sharks in their natural deep-ocean habitat. Cameras recorded two animals in the central Pacific, including one filmed near the Tonga Trench at an astonishing 1,997 metres below the surface.

That observation was around 700 metres deeper than previous records, dramatically extending what scientists knew about where these sharks can live.

Even more amazing is their family history.

Goblin sharks are the only surviving members of the family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage stretching back roughly 125 million years.

In other words, animals belonging to their evolutionary family were swimming through ancient oceans while dinosaurs still walked on land.

Read the research story: University of Western Australia – Elusive deep-sea goblin shark seen alive for the first time

2. A completely new species of “walking shark” has been discovered

Yes, there are sharks that walk.

Walking sharks do not stroll onto the beach. Instead, these small carpet sharks use their muscular pectoral and pelvic fins to manoeuvre across reefs and the seabed almost like four-legged animals.

In 2026 scientists described a new species from Papua New Guinea: Dudgeon’s walking shark (Hemiscyllium dudgeonae). It became the tenth recognised species in the genus Hemiscyllium.

Researchers combined observations of colour patterns, geographic distributions and genetic information to distinguish the shark from its relatives. The study also revealed an extraordinary patchwork of walking-shark populations across the region, with closely related species occupying relatively small and sometimes non-overlapping areas.

That extremely limited distribution is important. A species living in only a tiny geographical area can be especially vulnerable to habitat destruction, climate change or other environmental pressures, and researchers believe the newly described walking shark could be highly threatened.

Read the scientific study: University of the Sunshine Coast – Dudgeon’s Walking Shark

3. Greenland sharks may hold genetic clues to extreme longevity

The Greenland shark is already one of the most extraordinary vertebrates ever discovered.

Earlier age estimates suggested these enormous Arctic sharks may live for around 392 years, with considerable uncertainty around that estimate, making them the longest-lived vertebrates currently known.

Now scientists are beginning to understand how.

In May 2026 researchers published a chromosome-level assembly of the Greenland shark genome. At approximately 5.9 billion DNA base pairs, its genome is enormous.

The researchers found genetic features associated with processes such as DNA repair, immune function and cancer resistance, along with intriguing changes involving chromatin — the structure that helps package and protect DNA inside cells. These mechanisms are now being investigated as possible contributors to the shark’s extraordinary lifespan.

Think about what that lifespan means.

A Greenland shark reaching the upper ranges of the estimated lifespan could have been swimming through Arctic waters centuries before aeroplanes, cars or computers existed.

And there was another surprise.

Scientists once suspected Greenland sharks might have severely degraded vision because they live in darkness and commonly carry parasites on their eyes. But another recent study found their visual system remains intact and appears specifically adapted to extremely dim environments.

An animal that can potentially survive for centuries and still see in the darkness of the deep Arctic is difficult to beat for a mind-blowing shark fact.

Read the research: PNAS – The Greenland shark genome and Nature Communications – The visual system of the Greenland shark

4. Scientists put cameras on great white sharks — and saw the ocean from a shark’s point of view

What does a great white shark actually do when nobody is watching?

Scientists are finally getting answers.

In research published in July 2026, scientists attached camera and accelerometer packages to 13 juvenile white sharks along the coast of New South Wales, Australia. The cameras produced around 68.5 hours of footage from the sharks’ own perspective.

And the footage challenges the popular image of a great white constantly racing around looking for something to attack.

Researchers recorded only 20 high-speed “burst” events, representing roughly 0.1% of the recorded time. Visible potential prey appeared in only three of those events. Interestingly, half of the bursts occurred close to the seafloor without major depth changes, suggesting scientists may need to pay more attention to possible bottom-associated foraging behaviour.

Most of a white shark’s day, in other words, is considerably less dramatic than Jaws would have us believe.

This kind of animal-mounted technology is allowing scientists to observe behaviours that would be nearly impossible to study from a boat.

Read the study: Frontiers in Marine Science – A white shark’s view

5. Bull sharks have social lives — and some parents appear to reunite

Sharks have often been portrayed as solitary animals that encounter one another almost entirely by chance.

Bull sharks are helping to dismantle that stereotype.

A six-year study of 184 individually identified bull sharks in Fiji found that their associations were not simply random. Age and sex helped determine which sharks associated with one another, animals tended to interact with sharks of similar size, and adult sharks formed the core of the social network. Both sexes showed a preference for associating with females.

Then genetics revealed something even more fascinating.

A separate 2026 study analysed 296 bull sharks sampled over a decade around Fiji. Scientists identified hundreds of genetic relationships connecting adult sharks with youngsters living in nearby rivers. They also found young sharks from different years that appeared to share the same parents.

Researchers found 64 sharks from different years assigned to the same sire–dam pair, providing evidence that some male and female bull sharks may repeatedly reproduce together across breeding seasons.

That does not necessarily mean bull sharks form lifelong monogamous couples. But it does reveal a reproductive and social world far more structured than the traditional image of the mindless solitary predator.

Read the study: Royal Society Open Science – Female site fidelity and repeated pairings in bull sharks

6. A shark was filmed in Antarctic waters where scientists barely expected sharks at all

For years, Antarctica represented one of the great boundaries of the shark world.

Then a deep-sea camera captured something unexpected.

Footage recorded off the South Shetland Islands showed a large sleeper shark approximately three to four metres long cruising around 490 metres beneath the surface. Researchers reported the footage in 2026 as the first known video of a shark living naturally in these Antarctic/Southern Ocean waters.

The water was only just above freezing.

Scientists have not yet conclusively determined the shark’s exact species from the footage, which makes the discovery even more intriguing.

The finding does not mean sharks suddenly moved into Antarctica. It may simply mean we have finally developed the technology, and spent enough time looking, to see animals that were there all along.

And that is perhaps one of the greatest lessons emerging from modern deep-sea research: absence of evidence in the ocean often means we simply have not looked properly yet.

7. Scientists discovered a tiny shark that glows in the dark

If walking sharks were not strange enough, meet the West Australian lanternshark (Etmopterus westraliensis).

The species was formally described in 2025 using specimens collected off Western Australia. The largest known specimen was only 407 millimetres long, and individuals were collected from depths reaching approximately 610 metres.

But size is not its most spectacular feature.

Lanternsharks possess specialised light-producing structures called photophores, allowing them to produce their own biological light along parts of the belly and body.

A real glow-in-the-dark shark.

Scientists believe deep Australian waters still contain an extraordinary amount of undescribed biodiversity. CSIRO reported in 2026 that its research vessel Investigator had already contributed to the description of 179 new species during its first 12 years, while vast numbers of Australian marine species may still be scientifically undocumented.

Read more: CSIRO – New species of deep-sea shark discovered off Western Australia

8. Sharks are becoming swimming weather stations

Perhaps one of the strangest latest shark discoveries has almost nothing to do with studying sharks themselves.

Scientists are beginning to use sharks to study the ocean.

Researchers from the University of Delaware have been developing tags carrying conductivity, temperature and depth sensors. Attached to a shark’s dorsal fin, these devices can measure properties of the water as the animal naturally swims through different depths of the ocean.

The idea has now been expanded into research investigating whether species including shortfin makos, blue sharks, smooth hammerheads and juvenile white sharks could help collect information useful for understanding the ocean heat that fuels hurricanes.

When suitable tagged sharks reach the surface, information can be transmitted to satellites.

So an animal humans spent generations fearing may eventually contribute data that helps protect human coastal communities from powerful storms.

There is something rather wonderful about that.

Read more: University of Delaware – Shark scientists use sharks as ocean observers

9. Ancient sharks became enormous far earlier than scientists realised

Modern sharks are impressive.

Their prehistoric ancestors were equally capable of producing giants.

Five fossilised shark vertebrae discovered in northern Australia have changed scientists’ understanding of when gigantic sharks first evolved. Researchers identified them as belonging to an extinct group called cardabiodontids.

Using measurements from almost 2,000 living sharks to help reconstruct their size, scientists estimated these ancient predators may have reached six to eight metres in length and weighed more than three tonnes.

More importantly, giant size appears to have evolved in this shark lineage at least 10 million years earlier than previously thought, only around 20 million years after the group first appeared.

These animals were already dominating shallow prehistoric seas long before famous giants such as megalodon appeared.

Read more: Western Australian Museum – Ancient Super Sharks

How much about sharks do we still not know?

Perhaps the most exciting thing about all these discoveries is not what scientists have learned.

It is how much remains unknown.

A shark that walks.

A shark that glows.

A shark that may live for centuries.

A shark whose family lineage survived from the age of dinosaurs.

White sharks carrying cameras. Bull sharks choosing particular companions. Deep-sea sharks appearing in places researchers never expected them. Sharks gathering ocean data that could eventually improve weather forecasting.

The more closely science studies sharks, the less they resemble the simple, mindless predators portrayed in popular culture.

They are ancient, highly adapted animals with sophisticated senses, complex behaviours and ecological roles that we are still trying to understand.

And somewhere in the world’s oceans, there are almost certainly sharks we haven’t even discovered yet.

Latest Shark Discoveries 2026 – From shark discoveries around the world to the waters of Gansbaai

Some of the world’s most fascinating shark research also happens much closer to home.

South Africa is extraordinarily rich in shark and ray diversity, and the waters around Gansbaai provide opportunities to encounter species including bronze whaler sharks, broadnose sevengill sharks and, occasionally, great white sharks. White Shark Diving Company also uses its tourism platform to support marine education, research and conservation.

If learning about sharks has made you want to see one for yourself, you can explore our shark cage diving tours in Gansbaai, learn more about the bronze whaler sharks of South Africa, or discover why a living shark can be worth far more than a dead one.