Cookiecutter Shark

ocean · tiny predator · bioluminescent · deep sea

Impossibly small shark. The cookiecutter shark is only about as long as a pencil, measuring just 16 to 22 inches. Despite its tiny size, it's a fierce hunter of much bigger creatures like tuna, marlin, and even whales.

Glowing hunter. The shark's belly is covered with light-producing photophores that glow in the dark ocean depths. It even has a dark collar around its throat where no light shows, which might make it look like a different creature to fish above it.

Daily deep-sea commute. Every single day, this shark swims up and down through the ocean by up to 1.9 miles, heading toward the surface at dusk and sinking back down at dawn. It lives as deep as 2.3 miles below the surface where it's pitch black.

Cookie-shaped bites. Instead of swallowing prey whole, the cookiecutter shark latches onto large fish and whales with its mouth and sucks out a circular chunk of flesh about the size of a cookie. The shark leaves behind a perfectly round wound.