![]() ![]() They say the incident exemplifies broader problems within the scientific peer review process. The researchers who criticized the original paper again passed the blame, this time to the journal that published it. “In order to avoid further damage and given that the specimen had not been conserved by the citizen scientist … we decided to retract the article.” “Even though we have every reason to assume that the finding was authentic (several Mediterranean shark experts and anonymous peer reviewers accepted and supported publication of this paper!), other colleagues caused a completely unethical controversy and claimed that the specimen was a discarded plastic figurine,” writes Frithjof Kuepper, one of the original paper’s authors and a marine biodiversity researcher at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, in an email to the Daily Beast. As Joanna Thompson reports for the Daily Beast, the original authors still believe the goblin shark was real and squarely pin the blame on their skeptical peers. The long back-and-forth came to a head this week, when the original scientists retracted both the goblin shark entry from their initial paper and their rebuttal comment. It would be a lot less formed and have very thin translucent skin.” “A 17-centimeter-long specimen, which this is reported to be, would look very different to a newborn-sized specimen. “This for me was the key thing that just wasn’t right,” says Will White, senior curator of the Australian National Fish Collection, to Live Science’s Sascha Pare. But that explanation didn’t satisfy the skeptics, either-in fact, it only added more fuel to the fire. However, they did decrease their size estimate for the shark-from 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) to between 17 and 20 centimeters (about 6.5 to 8 inches)-and suggested instead that the small specimen could be an embryo. The original researchers responded by writing their own rebuttal comment, in which they doubled down on their original claim. “We would like to encourage the authors to provide additional evidence … to strengthen their hypothesis.”įolks /N7fM0OooIP- Dr. “We have doubts that the specimen … is a natural specimen,” they wrote. They also took issue with the fact that the researchers only included one photo of the shark in the paper. They listed ten reasons why they doubted the original claim, including the Mediterranean specimen’s protruding jaws, the number of gill slits and the length and shape of the fins. In November, shark researchers who were not involved with the original paper banded together to publish a comment about it in the same journal. Some internet sleuths even went so far as to make detailed comparisons of the toy shark and the supposed real shark, pointing out similarities such as what appears to be a plastic mold seam running next to the mouth.Īn update to the "did someone present a photo of a toy as evidence of a range extension of a rare species" saga:Īuthor's reply to the comment: /OVYpQEt9Ay- Dr. Photos of a plastic goblin shark toy that looked suspiciously similar to the specimen spotted in Greece made the rounds on social media. The paper, which was published in the journal Mediterranean Marine Science, attracted attention from various shark experts, who began to share their doubts about the legitimacy of the goblin shark discovery. That’s when the situation started to take a turn. ![]() In May 2022, based only on that image and a brief description from Papadakis, the researchers included the shark sighting in a scientific paper about various species found for the first time in the Mediterranean. Papadakis placed the shark on some rocks, took a photo and sent the image to a group of scientists. Scientists have more questions than answers about these spooky-looking swimmers, though they have spotted them in parts of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, per Gizmodo’s Lauren Leffer. Their appearance only adds to their mystique: The animals have long, shovel-shaped snouts, fearsome teeth and mouths that can protrude or retract depending on the scenario. Goblin sharks are mysterious and rarely seen fish that generally live thousands of feet beneath the ocean’s surface. The dramatic saga began in August 2020, when a citizen scientist named Giannis Papadakis reported that a well-preserved, dead goblin shark had washed ashore on a beach in Greece-a place with no prior records of these little-known creatures. A fishy controversy is dividing the field of marine biology: A group of scientists says an elusive goblin shark was spotted for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea, but their peers argue the team was likely duped by a plastic toy.
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