Distribution

Somniosus microcephalus is the largest arctic fish, well known to inhabit the freezing waters around Greenland in the north, to as far south as the temperate North Atlantic waters. While isolated incidents of individuals being identified as far south as Georgia (Hernendorf & Berra 1995) and reports of sightings of mystery Somniosus in the deep Gulf of Mexico that have been reported, this is not considered to be part of their range for several reasons including the difficulty of distinguishing the Greenland Shark from others in its genus and the possibility that individuals have bred with their more warm water tolerant relatives in the past. This is discussed in more detail on the “Taxonomy and Doppelgangers” page. 

From feeding on offal at the surface to gliding through the depths, S. microcephalus sightings have been reported throughout the water column, down as far as 2,000 meters.The Greenland Shark is difficult to track both over any extensive time, or to determine their true depth range. Trackers shed quickly due to the sharks soft muscle tissue, and the limit on transmission depths for commonly used trackers are between 1500m-1700m ( Hussey et al 2018).