Scientists Discover a New “Walking Shark” Off Papua New Guinea

In a shallow bay off the southeastern tip of Papua New Guinea, scientists have found a shark that prefers walking to swimming, and it turns out to be a species entirely new to science. Named Dudgeon’s walking shark, Hemiscyllium dudgeonae, the animal belongs to the group of small, harmless epaulette sharks famous for using their paddle-like fins to clamber across reefs and even tide pools when the water runs low.

The discovery was made by a team from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, led by researchers Jess Blakeway and Christine Dudgeon, during fieldwork in the Milne Bay region. Growing to roughly one metre in length, the nocturnal shark is patterned with distinctive small white dashes and brown dots scattered across its body, the very feature that first tipped the scientists off that they were looking at something unfamiliar. “The first thing that stood out was the white dashes along its brown body,” Blakeway recalled. Within two days of the initial sighting, the team located about a dozen individuals, males and females, juveniles and adults, all sharing the same striking markings.

“Named Dudgeon’s walking shark, Hemiscyllium dudgeonae, the animal belongs to the group of small, harmless epaulette sharks famous for using their paddle-like fins to clamber across reefs and even tide pools when the water runs low.”

The species carries the name of Christine Dudgeon herself, a shark geneticist and ecologist who has spent more than two decades studying these curious walking sharks. Local communities know the animal by the name kadedekedewa. Remarkably, it is the first new epaulette shark to be formally described since 2013, and the research was published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation.

There is a gentle note of caution woven through the celebration. Dudgeon’s walking shark appears to live only within a tiny stretch of coastline, a restricted range that could make it vulnerable to habitat loss, fishing pressure and a changing climate. The researchers intend to seek an IUCN Red List assessment, arguing that naming a species is the essential first step toward protecting it. For now, the find is a joyful reminder of how much life still waits to be discovered in the sea, and how a careful eye for a pattern of white dashes can add a whole new creature to the tree of life.