The Smallest Sharks

Some sharks are so small you could hold one in your hand.

When people picture a shark, they usually picture something enormous. But sharks come in every size, and the tiniest ones are barely longer than a pencil.

One of the smallest is the dwarf lanternshark, which grows to only about 17 to 21 centimetres — roughly 7 to 8 inches. It lives in deep water off the coast of South America, and it was only described by scientists in 1985. That’s a good reminder that when we say “the smallest shark,” we partly mean “the smallest one we’ve found so far.”

It has company in the tiny club. The spined pygmy shark and the African lanternshark are both around 18 to 20 centimetres. These little sharks live in the deep, dark parts of the ocean, where being small and staying out of sight is a very good survival plan.

Small comes with advantages. There’s less competition for tiny food, and it’s easier to hide from bigger hunters. It also comes with risk — a shark the size of a finger is a snack to almost anything larger than a finger.

A slightly confusing answer

If you ask which shark is truly the smallest, you’ll get slightly different answers depending on who’s measuring and how. Length and weight don’t always agree, and new species keep turning up. So the honest answer is: a handful of deep-sea lanternsharks share the record, and the order can change as we learn more.

Some of these little sharks even make their own light — which, if you’re a small animal in a dark ocean, is a genuinely useful trick. There’s a whole page about that.

Did you know? The dwarf lanternshark can glow in the dark with tiny light organs along its belly. Small and shy, but it carries a lantern.