The Lost Shark: Extinct or Alive?

Behind the name "The Lost Shark" there is a mystery involving a species that is thought to be a new discovery and feared extinct at the exact same time.  

Between 1897 and 1934, fishermen in Borneo, Vietnam, and Thailand caught three small, juvenile sharks. These specimens were kept in jars of ethanol and left on dusty museum shelves for nearly a century, with researchers assuming they were just common small tail sharks.  Then in 2019 when Dr. Will White checked the jars and realized that true small tail sharks only live in the Americas, an entire ocean away. Looking closer, he found the Asian specimens had a completely different snout, unique teeth, and an unusually small amount of vertebrae, proving it was a completely distinct species. Because no living person had seen one since 1934, Dr. White officially said it was extinct.

This is what it is thought to be:

And this is the small tail shark:

Can you spot the small differences?