A commentary of Malpelo Monster Shark | Expedition X

Malpelo Island is a protected marine sanctuary off the coast of Colombia. It is well known for its multitude of sharks, it has appeared to become a prime destination for shark week episodes. During shark week 2025 the show Expedition X, hosted by Josh Gates with field researchers Phil Torres and Heather Amaro, went to Malpelo to investigate a cryptid known as the Malpelo Monster.

*Spoilers and Personal Opinions Ahead*

The Malpelo Monster is a shark that is allegedly 30 feet long, many eyewitnesses have placed it at over 20 feet long. For size comparison great white sharks often average about 14-16 feet long but have been known to occasionally make 20 feet in length. So an over 20 foot shark is an incredibly large animal that would have to be sustained by large amounts of food. Luckily Manpelo island has the diversity to support this alleged monster shark. This cryptid has not been spotted often despite Malpelo’s attraction to divers. With its 21 confirmed shark species. There are common sightings of scalloped hammerhead sharks and rare sightings of small-tooth sand tiger sharks. Torres and Amaro join a team of scientists headed by Sandra Bessudo, an acclaimed marine biologist. She is credited with the first sighting of the Malpelo Monster back in

2001-2002. She also was the only one known to have recorded the Manpelo Monster prior to this expedition. Which I find to be a little weird that no one had recorded this shark in the 20 plus years since Bessudo did.

While the documentary was playing the footage that Bessudo took Gates is narrating about the shark. “It appears to be a monster shark, but what confounds Sandra and her team is that it’s unlike any shark ever identified before exhibiting features from several species, but much larger than any one of them.” While I am no shark expert I did feel as I was watching that footage that the shark was abnormally large, however to me it looked very similar to a tiger shark mixed with a silky shark. It was interesting to watch that footage, the commentary was a bit dramatic though for what I was seeing. There was comedic moments as Gates, Torres, and Amaro where talking after seeing the footage. Mainly focused around Gates’ previous shark adventures. I felt that this was a good choice to lighten the mood and still keep the focus on what the goal of this expedition was.

While the expedition x cast is going over how dangerous the waters around Malpelo can be Torres interrupts, “Hey you make this seem like a nightmare, but this is the dream. We might make history and prove this monster is real.” Which would be really cool. We know relatively little about what’s in the ocean and I was excited to see if they were able to find this cryptid and positively identify it. This is when Gates brings up that Malpelo is a protected sanctuary and the team won’t be able to set foot on the island. Which leaves them on a boat roughly 300 miles

away from a hospital is something were to go wrong. Overall I felt like this was the main factor driving the tension in this show. As in the water around Malpelo island the sharks aren’t the only concern. The team will also have to be careful with the several strong pacific currents that essentially collide with the island. These currents can allegedly reach up to five knots.

Their team has been permitted by the Colombian government to dive at Malpelo as well as to find and tag the alleged Malpelo Monster. The problem that the team will face if they find the Malpelo Monster, will be to tag it successfully. To tag it they need to place a fin clamp on the shark. So whoever is tagging the shark will have to literally be right next to a shark they know virtually nothing about. Before learning about the tag Amaro lets us know who we have to credit for the tag itself, “Marine ecologist Dr. Jorge Fontes is the brains behind a new non-invasive shark tracker.” The tag has lots of tech in it including a tracker and a camera. This tag is called “the iPilot tag, because it has an eye and it moves like a pilot fish. It follows the shark. It’s not attached to the shark. The reason this is designed like a torpedo is not just because it’s sexy, it’s because we don’t want it to touch the animal, we want it to track the animal behind the animal. To trail the animal. It’s towed by the shark,” Dr. Fontes explains.

As soon as they arrive at Malpelo Island the team prepares to dive for an exploratory dive. With the goal of setting up some underwater camera surveillance. Basically an underwater trail cam to see if they can capture the Monster on the footage. Going down on this dive is Bessudo, Torres, two cameramen, a safety diver and two shark spotters. In the hopes of making this dive as safe as possible. Almost immediately the team sees sharks, hundreds of hammerhead sharks. The footage of the hammerhead sharks was really clear and crisp. Overall the shots by the underwater camera men were well framed and gorgeous. My favorite shot was that off the lone spotted eagle ray. Shortly after the spotted eagle ray encounter the team finds a great spot to place a camera and radio Amaro, who is still up on the boat, their location so she can send down the first camera. The location they choose is referred to by Bessudo as, “the Cleaning Station”. It’s the area off Malpelo that angelfish like to live so the sharks will come there to get cleaned. The team then heads deeper to see if they can see the Monster shark themselves. The deeper they went the more dangerous the currents got and Torres ended up getting pulled by a current and separated from Bessudo. With the conditions not improving and not knowing where Bessudo is, Torres decides to head for the surface. When Torres reaches the surface and is picked up by Amaro he finds out that Bessudo has yet to come up. Which kicks off a tense moment of waiting for Bessudo to check in, eventually Bessudo comes to the surface and is picked up by the team.

Before the second dive the team meets up with a ranger who works on Malpelo Island. Because the team can’t set foot on the island the ranger has to come to them. After several attempts and losing Torres on the ladder for a moment the ranger is able to get down the ladder and onto the boat with Torres and Amaro. Park ranger César Cely has dived around Malpelo Island many times in his time as a ranger at Malpelo. Cely tells the team through his translator, “on the north

part of the island is where we have recorded the highest number of sightings.” Cely also warns the team, “Malpelo Island submerges rapidly to the depths, but there’s a specific place on the north side of the island where you can reach the depths more gradually through the rocky formations underwater, and potentially locate The Monster Shark.” Using this information the team plans to make the next dive in that area. Cely has also had an encounter with the Malpelo Monster in that spot. “Well, really, it was such an adventure to dive that deep and find that huge animal,”Cely recounted through his translator, “It’s truly astonishing. It’s a massive creature, and its characteristics are almost prehistoric. Seeing its fins emerge from the deep is just pure fear and terror. Be very careful. Again, it’s a very big shark, different than all the others. It’s one of the biggest creatures we have found around here, and it’s the one we know nothing about.”

For the second dive the team decides to have two groups one lower and one higher to cover more ground. If a team sees the Malpelo Monster they are to shadow it until it climbs up to them or the team at that level is able to tag it. Amaro is going to stay on the boat and control an underwater ROV to see if she can find the Malpelo Monster deeper and potentially send it up towards the dive teams. Both dive teams have the iPilot tags ready to go if they find the monster shark.

Amaro finds the alleged monster shark first. Luckily for the dive teams the shark is heading towards them. When the team spots it Bessudo says, “Wow! That’s the monster shark you can tell by the shape of its nose and how big it is.” The team eventually after three attempts manages to tag the shark successfully. After two days the tag releases from the shark and the team starts to review the data the tag collected. While reviewing footage the team spots that there are two of these alleged monster sharks.

After reviewing the data the team believes these sharks to be smalltooth sand tiger sharks. Smalltooth sand tiger sharks are known to get up to 17 ft in length. Which explains why the Monster Shark looks so big comparatively to the other sharks at Malpelo. While rare smalltooth sand tiger sharks have allegedly been spotted at Malpelo island clear back in 2001. With Expedition X’s sighting being a confirmed sighting, new research will be able to be done with the Malpelo smalltooth sand tigers. Which may actually be longer than the other populations that have been recorded. However eyewitness accounts in regards to length can be tricky. So until there are more confirmed and studied sightings it can’t be said for certain that the Malpelo population is in fact longer.