Characterized by its stocky body, greenish coloring and black-tipped fins, the Smoothtop Blacktip Shark is probably not one that would come to mind if you and I were playing Scattergories, and the category of sharks popped up on our cards. It's not that I don't think you know about sharks, but rather it's a matter of this unique species being extinct for over a hundred years, last seen in Yemen in 1902.
That is, until now.
Decades after scientists determined that the Smoothtop Blacktip Shark was extinct, back in the 1980s, a handful of them have turned up in a fish market in Kuwait, reports AOL. It was in 2008 that the Shark Conversation Society paid a visit to the market and noticed a shark there that didn't quite look like the others, and more recent analysis has revealed that it was indeed the elusive Smoothtop Blacktip that they spotted.
Studies at other Middle Eastern fish markets have turned up nearly 50 of the 'extinct' sharks, which scientists and shark conservationists hope will allow them to learn more about the species, and possibly even save them from a true extinction.