A research team has been forced to retract its findings about a shark sighting after there was widespread suspicion the specimen may have actually been a toy.
A photo of what was originally thought to be a goblin shark lying on several rocks was originally published by three marine biologists in the journal Mediterranean Marine Science, last May.
The image was submitted by a scientist in Greece named Giannis Papadakis, who was credited with taking the photo in August 2020.
The shark appeared to be preserved in remarkable condition, and the marine scientists, who never observed or interacted with the specimen in the photo, said it was likely a juvenile or baby since they were told it was no longer than 31 inches.
Goblin shark sightings are considerably rare.
But other marine biologists and shark experts called the photo into question and four marine scientists jointly published a paper noting some unusual features.
They say the shark had too few gills, the wrong fins, looked stiff, and was missing teeth.
They also noted that they had no way of verifying if Mr Papadakis found the shark and was the person who took the photo of it.
A striking similarity to a plastic toy shark sold by the Italian toy manufacturer DeAgostini, which can be bought online.
Others noted the absence of a scale bar, making it difficult to verify the size of the shark in the photo.
The authors of the original paper say they used the rock for scale instead.
Paper co-author Frithjof Küpper, chair of marine biodiversity at University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said: "Even though we have every reason to assume that the finding was authentic (several Mediterranean shark experts and [two] 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.
"In order to avoid further damage and given that the specimen had not been conserved by the citizen scientist in Anafi Papadakis, we decided to retract the article."
