It is dubbed the "alien of the deep" for its terrifying appearance, but the Australian Museum could not be more excited to show off its most recent addition, a goblin shark.

The rare specimen was unintentionally caught in January by fishermen in Green Cape, south of Eden on the New South Wales coast.

The body of the bizzare-looking shark was then donated to the museum in Sydney by Michael McMaster of the Merimbula Aquarium.

Museum ichthyology collection manager Mark McGrouther had only ever seen three goblin sharks before this acquisition.

"They are not encountered terribly often, and when they do come here it's a very special day," he said.

The shark is often considered a living fossil as it is the only surviving member of the prehistoric Mitsukurinidae shark family which stretches back 125 million years.

Goblin sharks have a distinctive flattened snout which is covered in electroreceptors called ampullae of Lorenzini, which give it the ability to sense electric fields produced by nearby prey at depths of 300 to 900 metres.

Unlike other sharks such as whalers and tiger sharks, the Goblin uses its incredibly pointy nail-like teeth to spear prey, not slice it.

They are often found off coastlines in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.