Eerie ghost shark covered in parasites spotted off coast of Grenada

A creepy-looking deep-sea ghost shark has been caught on camera in the Caribbean.

And the animal was apparently not alone - being covered in parasites.

The crew of the E/V Nautilus caught the footage of the rare animal and, according to Chron.com, a member of the team said the shark had parasites all over it: "You can see them hanging off him, he doesn't look too healthy."

Not only is that kind of creepy, the shark also has bright blue transparent eyes and a slightly sinister grin.

The footage was captured by a remotely-operated submersible vehicle that had originally been sent down to explore an underwater volcano, known as Kick'em Jenny, off the coast of the Caribbean island of Grenada.

According to Wikipedia, chimaeras, also known as ghost sharks, could be the "oldest and most enigmatic groups of fishes alive today".

The chimaera is a species of its own, with their closest living relatives being sharks, though in evolutionary terms, they branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago and have remained isolated ever since.

Chimaeras live in temperate ocean floors down to 8,500ft deep, with few occurring at depths shallower than 660ft, and can grow up to 4.9ft in length.

Back in September, the Nautilus team also captured incredible footage of one of the world's rarest deep sea creatures on camera.

The purple siphonophore was spotted during a deep sea expedition in the Gulf of Mexico in June. It looks like a jellyfish (it's a relative) but is in fact a colony of organisms connected together.