Every so often the animal kingdom just throws out a curveball that we’re not prepared for—like in 1970 when fishermen reeled in a freakish-looking shark and then it was never seen again.

Well 50 years later, that shark—so unique that it was declared a new genus—has finally been found again, confirming that the fishermen’s encounter wasn’t just a well-remembered dream.

Meet the sailback houndshark, believed to be endemic to the water’s of Papua New Guinea, and perhaps even to a single stretch of ocean called Astrolabe Bay. A group of fisherfolk reported that 5 of the sharks had been caught while a team of scientists were on the island conducting research for the country’s National Plan of Action on Sharks and Rays.

They had been caught incidentally at the mouth of a river that drains int

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