 Due to its limited range and the difficulty of collecting deep water species, it has not been evaluated by the IUCN Red List, but due to recent oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, it is likely that Fringefin lanternsharks have decreased in population.The Fringefin lanternshark was first identified in 1953 by H.B.Bigelow, W. C. Schroeder, and S. Springer in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College.