This is like "Jaws." On steroids.
A public necropsy was performed this week on a rare megamouth shark caught off the coast of Japan — one of just 58 ever seen by humans. The female shark weighs 1,500 pounds and measures at least 13 feet long.
It was captured about a half-mile down in the waters off Shizuoka along the southern coast of central Japan.
Dubbed an "alien shark" for its large, bulbous head and enormous mouth, it was only discovered for the first time in 1976 and uses its defining feature to engulf plankton, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.
About 1,500 people attended the necropsy at the Marine Science Museum in Shizuoka.
Marine biologists hope to use the find as a means to study the rare creature. At least 13 of the 58 known sightings of megamouths have occurred off the coast of Japan.
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