Inside Nesha
The new species was named in honor of study co-author and ecologist Christine Dudgeon (in the image, with a specimen of the “walking” shark)
A team of scientists has discovered a new species of “walking” shark in Papua New Guinea. They suspect it is at risk of extinction. The creature belongs to a unique group of sharks whose members can use their strong pectoral fins as if they were legs to move around.
The inhabitants of southeastern Papua New Guinea have long known about an unusual fish that can “walk” over the reef platforms at low tide, with most of the body out of the water.
They call it kadedekedewawhich roughly means “lazy shark” or “dog shark”, in an allusion to its go dollish.
Scientists have now identified the creature as a previously undescribed species.
Named after Hemiscyllium dudgeonaeor Dudgeon’s walking shark, belongs to a unique group of sharks whose members can use their strong pectoral fins as if they were legsas they travel along the coasts of Australia and the island of New Guinea.
The researchers describe the H. dudgeonaethe first new species of the genus Hemiscyllium since 2013, in a published on Monday in Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation.
O H. dudgeonae has the name of the study co-author Christine Dudgeonan ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), in Australia, who first spotted the shark in March 2025, in the shallow waters of Milne Bay, located off the extreme southeast of Papua New Guinea and opening into the Solomon Sea.
Dudgeon I was swimming looking for sharks of an already known species, the epaulette shark, when he came across a creature of about 75cm in length sliding along the seabed, says .
The ecologist pointed the flashlight beam in front of the shark, which caused it to freeze. He swam closer, grabbed it gently, turned it over and tucked his tail under his armpit to keep him still.
Dudgeon passed the shark to the article’s lead author, Jess Blakeway, also an ecologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, who was waiting on a nearby boat. Immediately, Blakeway knew from the shark’s color pattern that it was not a leopard shark— It was something completely different..
“This new shark has lots of stains and lines that reminded me of braille or morse code,” Blakeway told .
In the following days, the team looked for other specimens of the shark, having captured a total of 12 individuals. They took biological samples from nine before releasing them, but kept the other three for further study.
DNA tests confirmed that these sharks had genetic differences sufficient in relation to the remaining walking sharks to justify their classification as new species.
The creatures appear to spend most of their time in shallow waters, swimming among seagrass and scattered coral outcrops.
“We often talk about the deep sea as something unknown — we don’t really think of shallow waters as being unknown,” Blakeway tells . “Therefore, finding a new species of shark in shallow waters It’s simply exciting“.
Although scientists have only just become aware of the species’ existence, they suspect that it runs the risk of becoming extinct.
These sharks face numerous threatsincluding coral bleaching caused by climate change and habitat loss and degradation resulting from coastal development and the expansion of oil palm plantations.
Before this discovery, it was recognized 9 species of walking sharktwo of which are considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including the epaulette shark that the team initially looked for in Milne Bay.
