A Rarely Seen Megamouth Shark was Recently Spotted in East Africa for the Very First Time

This megamouth shark was caught by an artisanal fishing vessel in Zanzibar’s waters, and then landed at a beach on Pemba Island. The shark was sold for about US$17, probably for consumption in the local communities. As the only individual megamouth shark ever found along the east coast of Africa, this finding extends the areas of the world’s oceans in which the shark is known to live, filling what used to be a gap in its otherwise near-global distribution. This was only the sixth megamouth ever seen in Africa, with one previous sighting each in South Africa, Gabon, Liberia, Senegal and Mauritania between 1995 and 2020.

SOURCE: THE CONVERSATION