Long-lost sailback shark rediscovered after more than 50 years
The rare sailback houndshark, which has an unusually large dorsal fin, was first described by scientists in 1973. That was the last record of its existence, until now
By Jake Buehler
26 August 2025
An adult female sailback houndshark
Jack Sagumai et al. (2025)
One of the rarest sharks in the world has turned up in Papua New Guinea, some 50 years after it was last reported.
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Adorned with a curiously large and deep dorsal fin, the sailback houndshark was first described by scientists in 1973, when a pregnant female shark was caught in Papua New Guinea’s Astrolabe Bay, near the Gogol River. This single animal remained the only record of the species for decades.
Jack Sagumai at the World Wildlife Fund-Pacific in Papua New Guinea and his colleagues were gathering fisheries data directly from local communities as part of a project supporting the country’s National Plan of Action on Sharks and Rays. In March 2020, they received quite the surprise: photographs of multiple small sharks caught near the mouth of the Gogol River, all under a meter long and with a pronounced dorsal fin.
In total, there were five such sharks, later determined to be females. In 2022, another fisher found a male nearby. With the help of William White at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia, the team confirmed these fish were long-lost sailback houndsharks.
“When he mentioned that this species has been very elusive, it got us excited,” says Sagumai.
