Pacific Sleeper Sharks Bridge Arctic Ice and the Deep Pacific Basin

Few shark species are regularly documented in both polar surface waters and deep abyssal habitats.

This vertical and geographic range spans environments separated by extreme differences in light, pressure, and temperature, a transition that few giant vertebrates manage within a single lifetime.

By traversing these ecological frontiers, the species functions as a biological connector, transporting energy and predation pressure across zones that are typically isolated in the ocean’s layered structure.