Black shark with a faint glow is thought to be able to sneak up on its prey.

A newly-discovered species of shark uses its black colouring and just the right amount of body glow to enable it to be super stealthy.

Given its characteristics, the shark is being given the common name ninja lanternshark. Possibly unsurprisingly, that name was dreamed up by a bunch of kids.

Maybe a little more of a surprise is its scientific name Etmopterus benchleyi, after Peter Benchley the author of Jaws but these days an ardent shark conservationist.

Vicky Vasquez, one of the scientists who detailed the new shark in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, said the shark was a uniform sleek black colour. It also had fewer photophores (organs that emit light) than other species of lanternsharks.

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The glowing is thought to work well for lanternsharks, with the fish emitting just enough light to hide their shadows, likely as a form of camouflage making them invisible from below.

The ninja name for the new shark, first seen in 2010, comes from four of Vasquez's cousins, aged 8 to 14.

"They have all grown up being really interested in animals, especially sharks, so I knew if I gave them this opportunity they would be really excited," Vasquez told Foreign Policy.

The young team actually suggested super ninja shark as the name, but Vasquez got them to scale it back to ninja lanternshark.

She told Mashable she and her cousins felt the shark's characteristics "would make this species stealthy like a ninja".

Despite sounding rather unsettling, the ninja is no monster. Of the five studied by scientists for the journal article, the longest measured just over 50cm.

The species lives in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Central America and was found in waters from 836-1443 metres deep.