This is the terrifying moment student divers came face-to-face with an extremely rare deep-water shark off California. Murky footage showed the prickly shark suddenly appear out of the darkness during the alarming encounter on the La Jolla coast near San Diego last week.

The southern sleeper shark is a large, slow-moving species of deepwater shark typically found across the Southern Ocean from central Chile to the sub-Antarctic Islands. While it is well adapted to cold temperatures, it’s still rare to see this species venture into the frigid waters immediately surrounding Antarctica.

First shark filmed in Antarctica: Scientists were stunned to film a large sleeper shark in the Antarctic Ocean. This marks the first recorded sighting of a shark so far south. The discovery challenges long-held beliefs about sharks avoiding these frigid waters.