Cookie Cutter
Isistius brasiliensis
A tiny shark takes perfectly round bites.
The cookiecutter shark is small enough to hold but bold enough to nibble giants. It suctions onto a passing animal, bites, and twists out a neat plug of flesh.
Find this SeaPal in the card gallery
From field guide to game table
Bring this Cookie Cutter home
See which ready-to-play decks feature this SeaPal. Try one in the simulator before you buy, or explore each full deck list.
- 1 copy
Ready-to-play deck
Darkness Shroud Deck
Includes 1 card featuring Cookie Cutter.
Quick dive
Creature passport
- Home
- It spends days below 1,000 meters in warm oceans and rises toward the surface at night.
- Favorite foods
- It bites plugs from whales, seals, large fish, and sharks, and also eats small squid and crustaceans.
- Size check
- Up to about 22 in (56 cm)—about skateboard length
Tell-your-friends facts
Four wonderfully wild things
- 1
Glowing belly photophores help hide its silhouette from animals below.
- 2
A dark collar near the head may look like a tempting little fish.
- 3
It sheds its lower teeth as one connected row and swallows them to recycle calcium.
- 4
Cookiecutter bite marks have appeared on whales, sharks, and even submarines.
Ocean superpower
Built to be amazing
Suction-cup lips and saw-like lower teeth cut a round cookie-shaped bite.
Junior scientist tip
What should I look for?
Look for a cigar-shaped body, dark neck band, and wide round sucker mouth.
Grown-up research links
We used trusted science organizations to check this profile.