Take a look at this shark!  Have you ever heard of it?

The megamouth shark, very aptly named, is a very rare type of shark. It was only discovered in 1976, so it's a very "new" type of shark as far as scientific study is concerned.  It is so rare that it is classified in its own family, Megachasmidae. 

I was introduced to the Megamouth during a recent visit to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The megamouth is the world's rarest shark, and the one housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is the only one of this kind on public view in North America! It looks quite gruesome in general, but even more so on display at the museum because it is being preserved! Check it out.

The Megamouth housed in the Los Angeles History Museum is a male shark that was found off of Catalina Island in California on November 29, 2984. The megamouth has been spotted off the coasts of California, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Senegal and western Australia in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The megamouth is a filter-feeder like whale sharks. This means that they filter the water for small delicious treats like plankton, shrimp and jellyfish.

I wish I could tell you more, but the megamouth is so rare that it a mystery to science. Generally, these sharks are brown/black in color, with some white on their bottom side. Their bodies are flabby, their teeth are small, and their mouths are surrounded by luminous photophores, light emittimg organs. The photophores attract food like plankton and shrimp. Young sharks mature in eggs that stay in the mother's body until they hatch, reproduction known as ovoviviparity.