Scientists have named 565 living species of shark, and this page lists every one of them: 9 orders, 39 families, each shark under its family with its scientific name, where that name comes from and a fact worth knowing about it. Click a shark’s name to open its own article as each one is published.
What the list covers
This is the complete checklist of living sharks, built from the two lists scientists trust most: the FishBase catalog of valid fish species and the Shark References checklist of living sharks, checked name by name in October 2026. Fossil sharks such as megalodon are not here; they have their place in the Sharks article. Rays, skates and sawfish are relatives, not sharks, and have their own lists coming. Sharks that scientists have seen but not yet formally named (the “sp. A” and “sp. B” entries in field guides) are left out until they get a name. New sharks are still being named every year, several in most years, so the count grows: the latest here were described in 2025.
The list follows the nine-order arrangement that FishBase and Shark References use, with the two bramble sharks in an order of their own. Many books fold them into the dogfish sharks and count eight orders; the sharks are the same either way. A few names differ between the big catalogs: FishBase now files the tiger shark in a family of its own, the zebra shark as Stegostoma tigrinum, and the sand tiger in the family Carchariidae; this list follows FishBase. The meaning of every scientific name follows the ETYFish Project, the reference work on fish names.
Reading the table
Each order has a band, each family a table, and the tile row jumps to any order. The first column gives the shark’s common name in English, the second its scientific name (genus and species, in italics). The Notes column tells two things: Name, where the scientific name comes from (the Greek or Latin behind it, the person or place it honors, the feature it describes), and Fact, one or two things worth knowing about that shark: how big it grows, where and how deep it lives, what makes it unusual, how it was discovered, or whether it is in danger.
The search box searches the whole list: a shark’s name, its genus (try Carcharhinus), a place (Australia, Caribbean), a word from the notes (glows, river, egg) or a Red List status (Endangered). A blue name is a link to that shark’s own article; a grey name is a shark whose article is still being written.
Every Living Shark, by Order and Family
No shark matches that search.
Ground sharks Carcharhiniformes · 306 species
A third eyelid that slides over the eye when biting, five gill slits, two dorsal fins and an anal fin. More than half of all sharks.
Requiem sharks Carcharhinidae · 59 species
The classic shark shape: tiger, bull, blue, blacktip, reef and whaler sharks. Most of the sharks people meet, and most of the ones in attack records.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blacknose shark | Carcharhinus acronotus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; acronotus, Greek for summit and back, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 2.0 m (6.6 ft) on the shelves of the western Atlantic from North Carolina to Uruguay, mostly 18 to 64 m (59 to 210 ft) down. Captive sharks warn divers off by hunching the back, dropping the pectoral fins and gaping the jaws; it is listed as Endangered. |
| Silvertip shark | Carcharhinus albimarginatus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; albimarginatus, Latin for white bordered, for its white fin tips. Fact Reaches 3 m (10 ft) around offshore islands and coral reefs of the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans, 30 to 800 m (98 to 2,625 ft) deep. When a diver follows it, it swims off, charges back, turns broadside and shivers to flash its white fin edges, a threat display all its own; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Bignose shark | Carcharhinus altimus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; altimus, Latin for highest, meaning not explained by its author. Fact A deepwater shark that swims near the sea floor at 90 to 430 m (300 to 1,410 ft) in warm seas worldwide and rises toward the surface at night. Females reach at least 2.8 m (9.2 ft) and the heaviest on record weighed 168 kg (370 lb); it is so often mistaken for the sandbar shark that its decline went unnoticed. |
| Graceful shark | Carcharhinus amblyrhynchoides | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; amblyrhynchoides, Greek oides, similar to, because it was once confused with C. amblyrhynchos. Fact Reaches 1.7 m (5.6 ft) in open midwater of the tropical Indo Pacific from the Gulf of Aden to northern Australia, recorded to 50 m (160 ft). It was first described from a 60 cm (24 in) young female caught off Cape Bowling Green, Queensland, and fossil teeth from Brunei push its record back to the Late Miocene. |
| Grey reef shark | Carcharhinus amblyrhynchos | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; amblyrhynchos, Greek for blunt snout, for its broadly rounded snout. Fact Reaches 2.6 m (8.5 ft) along Indo Pacific reef drop offs, usually above 60 m (200 ft) but recorded to 1,000 m (3,300 ft). It was the first shark known to give a threat display, hunching its back and dropping its pectoral fins before an attack, and hunting packs of up to 700 have been seen at Fakarava atoll; listed as Endangered. |
| Pigeye shark | Carcharhinus amboinensis | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; amboinensis, for Ambon Island, Indonesia, the type locality. Fact Reaches 2.8 m (9.2 ft) in murky, soft bottomed coastal waters of the eastern Atlantic and Indo West Pacific down to 150 m (490 ft). A 1987 catch off Queensland was the first albino requiem shark ever found, and in 1993 one of these sharks caused a ciguatera poisoning in Madagascar that sickened about 500 people and killed 98; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Borneo shark | Carcharhinus borneensis | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; borneensis, for Borneo, where the type locality off Singkawang lies. Fact A 65 cm (26 in) shark known before 2004 from only five young specimens, all collected before 1937; in April and May 2004 Universiti Malaysia Sabah researchers found it again at fish landing sites in Sabah and Sarawak. It is the only member of its genus with a row of enlarged pores above the corners of the mouth; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Copper shark | Carcharhinus brachyurus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; brachyurus, Greek for short tail, which ETYFish calls a misnomer since the tail is not short. Fact Reaches 3.3 m (11 ft) and 305 kg (672 lb) in temperate coastal waters from the surf zone to at least 100 m (330 ft), with separate populations in the Atlantic, Indo Pacific and eastern Pacific. It matures very late, at 13 to 19 years for males and 19 to 20 for females, and tagged sharks have traveled 1,320 km (820 mi) on seasonal migrations; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Spinner shark | Carcharhinus brevipinna | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; brevipinna, Latin for short fin, for its small pectoral and first dorsal fins. Fact Reaches 3 m (9.8 ft) in warm seas worldwide except the eastern Pacific, usually shallower than 30 m (98 ft). It hunts by charging up through schools of fish while spinning on its axis, often flying clear of the water at the end of the run, and its eggs are the smallest relative to the embryo of any live bearing shark known; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Nervous shark | Carcharhinus cautus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; cautus, Latin for wary, from Whitley's note that it fled into deep water when startled. Fact Reaches 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in shallow waters off northern Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, recorded to 45 m (148 ft). Females store sperm for about four weeks before fertilization, and pregnancy lasts 8 to 9 months in warm Darwin Harbor but 11 months in cooler Shark Bay; listed as Least Concern. |
| Pacific smalltail shark | Carcharhinus cerdale | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; cerdale, Greek for crafty or cunning, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 140 cm (55 in) on the sea floor of the eastern Pacific from the Gulf of California to Peru, 0 to 40 m (0 to 130 ft) deep. Described in 1898, it was wrongly lumped with the smalltail shark for decades until the error was corrected in 2011; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Coates' shark | Carcharhinus coatesi | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; coatesi, honors George Coates, an angler and artist of North Queensland who caught the holotype. Fact Reaches 88 cm (35 in) in inshore waters of northern Australia from Shark Bay to Fraser Island, down to 123 m (400 ft). Only its second dorsal fin carries a black tip, and it was restored as a species of its own in 2012 after long being merged with the whitecheek and blackspot sharks; listed as Least Concern. |
| Whitecheek shark | Carcharhinus dussumieri | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; dussumieri, honors Jean Jacques Dussumier, a French voyager and merchant who collected type material off Bombay. Fact Reaches about 1 m (3.3 ft) on continental shelves of the Indo West Pacific from the Persian Gulf to Japan and Australia, down to 170 m (560 ft). It breeds all year round, carrying one to four pups that are born at about 38 cm (15 in), and in Australian waters it makes up 2 to 3 percent of all fish caught by weight. |
| Silky shark | Carcharhinus falciformis | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; falciformis, Latin for sickle shaped, for its curved pectoral fins. Fact Reaches 3.5 m (11 ft) and 346 kg (763 lb) in open tropical seas warmer than 23 °C (73 °F), mostly in the top 200 m (660 ft) but diving to 500 m (1,600 ft). It herds small fish into tight balls and slashes through them, and tuna crews in the eastern Pacific call it the net eating shark for the damage it does to gear; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Creek whaler | Carcharhinus fitzroyensis | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; fitzroyensis, for the Fitzroy River, Queensland, the type locality. Fact Reaches 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in estuaries and inshore waters of northern Australia, from the tide line to at least 40 m (130 ft). Females mate in May to July but do not ovulate until July to September, storing sperm for months, and the species was named from a 1.2 m (3.9 ft) female caught in Connor's Creek in the Fitzroy estuary; listed as Least Concern. |
| Galapagos shark | Carcharhinus galapagensis | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; galapagensis, for the Galapagos Islands, the type locality. Fact Reaches 3.3 to 3.7 m (11 to 12 ft) around tropical oceanic islands worldwide, with adults recorded to 180 m (590 ft). The holotype was a 65 cm (26 in) unborn pup from the Galapagos, and large adults there eat sea lions and marine iguanas; listed as Least Concern. |
| Pondicherry shark | Carcharhinus hemiodon | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; hemiodon, Greek for half tooth, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Fewer than 20 specimens exist in museums, most collected before 1900, and the last verified record is from India in 1979. It grows to about 1 m (3.3 ft) in inshore waters from the Gulf of Oman to New Guinea and is listed as Critically Endangered; a 2014 photo from Sri Lanka turned out to be a young bull shark. |
| Human's whaler shark | Carcharhinus humani | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; humani, honors Brett A. Human, an Australian marine biologist who worked on sharks of South Africa and Oman and died in 2011. Fact Described in 2014 by White and Weigmann in the journal Zootaxa from the western Indian Ocean, with records off Socotra, Kuwait, Mozambique and South Africa. So little is known about it that the Red List rates it Data Deficient. |
| Finetooth shark | Carcharhinus isodon | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; isodon, Greek for equal tooth, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 1.9 m (6.2 ft) in very shallow western Atlantic waters from North Carolina to Brazil, usually no deeper than 20 m (66 ft). Some Florida sharks have green eyes, and after mating the male's semen hardens into a spongy mass inside the female for reasons no one has explained; listed as Near Threatened. |
| Smoothtooth blacktip shark | Carcharhinus leiodon | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; leiodon, Greek for smooth tooth, for the smooth edged upper teeth. Fact Known for over a century from a single 75 cm (30 in) young male caught off Yemen in 1902 and kept in Vienna; Jack Garrick named it in 1985, and in 2008 fishery surveys in Kuwait turned up more. It reaches about 1.3 m (4.3 ft) and is listed as Endangered. |
| Bull shark | Carcharhinus leucas | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; leucas, Greek for white, for its pale underside. Fact Reaches 4.0 m (13 ft) and swims far into fresh water, about 1,100 km (700 mi) up the Mississippi to Alton, Illinois, and about 4,000 km (2,500 mi) up the Amazon to Iquitos, Peru. Its bite force of 5,914 newtons (1,330 lbf) is the highest for its weight of any cartilaginous fish measured; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Blacktip shark | Carcharhinus limbatus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; limbatus, Latin for bordered, for its black edged fins. Fact Reaches 2.8 m (9.2 ft) in warm coastal waters worldwide, mostly shallower than 30 m (98 ft). It leaps from the water spinning three or four times at about 6.3 m/s (21 ft/s), and in 2007 a female at the Virginia Aquarium gave birth with no male present, the pup proven by genetics to come from parthenogenesis; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Oceanic whitetip shark | Carcharhinus longimanus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; longimanus, Latin for long hand, for its long paddle shaped pectoral fins. Fact Reaches over 4 m (13 ft) in the open ocean worldwide, staying mostly in the top 150 m (490 ft). Survivors blamed it for the deaths of hundreds of sailors after the USS Indianapolis sank in 1945, and its northwest Atlantic population fell about 99 percent between the 1950s and 1990s; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Hardnose shark | Carcharhinus macloti | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; macloti, honors Heinrich Christian Macklot, the German naturalist who collected the holotype in New Guinea. Fact Reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft) in shallow Indo West Pacific waters from Kenya to Japan and northern Australia, reported to 170 m (560 ft). Its snout cartilage is hardened with calcium, unlike its relatives, and tagging showed most sharks moving under 50 km (30 mi) though one traveled 711 km (442 mi); listed as Near Threatened. |
| Carcharhinus macrops | Carcharhinus macrops | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; macrops, not covered by ETYFish. Fact Known only from a holotype taken near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea and described by Liu in 1983; FishBase lists it as a doubtful species whose holotype must be examined again, close to the dusky or Galapagos shark, and the Red List has never assessed it. |
| Blacktip reef shark | Carcharhinus melanopterus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; melanopterus, Greek for black fin, for its black fin tips. Fact Reaches about 1.6 m (5.2 ft) and rarely 1.8 m (5.9 ft) in water only a few meters deep on Indo Pacific reefs. A tracked shark at Palmyra Atoll kept to a home range of about 0.55 km² (0.21 mi²), among the smallest of any shark, and groups in the Indian Ocean herd mullet against the shore to feed; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Dusky shark | Carcharhinus obscurus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; obscurus, Latin for dark, for its blue gray body. Fact Reaches 4.2 m (14 ft) in warm seas worldwide, with tracked journeys of 3,800 km (2,400 mi) and dives to 400 m (1,300 ft). A 2 m (6.6 ft) shark bit with about 60 kg (130 lb) of force on a tooth tip 2 mm² across, the highest shark bite pressure yet measured; listed as Endangered. |
| Lost shark | Carcharhinus obsoletus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; obsoletus, Latin for extinct, because it has not been seen since 1934; the first spelling was a misspelling. Fact Known from only three specimens, from Borneo, Vietnam and Thailand, all over 80 years old; it was named in 2019 by White, Kyne and Harris, and in 2020 the Red List declared it Critically Endangered, feared extinct after 80 years without a sighting. |
| Caribbean reef shark | Carcharhinus perezii | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; perezii, honors Laureano Perez Arcas, a Madrid academic whose textbook Poey used at the University of Havana. Fact Reaches 3 m (9.8 ft) on coral reefs of the tropical western Atlantic, usually above 30 m (98 ft) but recorded to 378 m (1,240 ft). It was the first active shark reported resting motionless on the sea floor and inside caves, and it can turn its stomach inside out to clean it; listed as Endangered. |
| Sandbar shark | Carcharhinus plumbeus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; plumbeus, Latin for lead colored, for its gray brown back. Fact Females reach 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) in warm seas worldwide, from the tide line to over 200 m (660 ft), and live 35 to 41 years. Its very tall triangular first dorsal fin made it a prime target of the U.S. fin trade until commercial landings were banned in 2008; listed as Endangered. |
| Smalltail shark | Carcharhinus porosus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; porosus, Latin for pored, for the large pores behind the eye. Fact Reaches 1.5 m (4.9 ft) over muddy inshore bottoms of the western Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico to southern Brazil, no deeper than 36 m (118 ft). It gathers in large groups sorted by sex, with males deeper than females, and females give birth only every other year; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Blackspot shark | Carcharhinus sealei | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; sealei, honors Alvin Seale, the American ichthyologist who described it in 1910 under a name already taken. Fact Reaches about 95 cm (37 in) in shallow Indo West Pacific waters down to about 40 m (130 ft), with a big black triangle covering half its second dorsal fin. It matures at about one year old and 70 cm (28 in) and lives five years or more; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Night shark | Carcharhinus signatus | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; signatus, Latin for marked, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 2.8 m (9.2 ft) in the Atlantic, usually 50 to 600 m (160 to 1,970 ft) down and reported to 2 km (1.2 mi). Its large eyes glow bright green in life, and it got its name because it is mostly caught at night, when it feeds; listed as Endangered. |
| Spottail shark | Carcharhinus sorrah | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; sorrah, from a Tamil word for shark. Fact Reaches about 1.6 m (5.2 ft) in the tropical Indo West Pacific from East Africa to northern Australia, from the surface to 72 m (236 ft). It rests near the seabed by day and rises to the surface at night, and pups are born about 50 cm (20 in) long after a 10 month pregnancy; listed as Near Threatened. |
| Australian blacktip shark | Carcharhinus tilstoni | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; tilstoni, honors Richard Tilston, a naturalist surgeon at Port Essington, Northern Territory, near where the holotype was taken in the 1840s. Fact Reaches 2.0 m (6.6 ft) on the Australian shelf from Western Australia to Sydney, down to 150 m (490 ft). It interbreeds with the common blacktip shark along Australia's east coast, the first confirmed hybrids among cartilaginous fishes; listed as Least Concern. |
| Indonesian whaler shark | Carcharhinus tjutjot | Name Carcharhinus, Greek karcharos, jagged, for the teeth, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for the rough skin; tjutjot, from an Indonesian word for shark, pronounced choo choot. Fact A small shark of about 1 m (3.3 ft) found from Indonesia and Taiwan to Borneo in inshore waters down to 170 m (560 ft). Long treated as a synonym of the whitecheek shark, it was revived as a valid species in 2012, and most sharks landed in Malaysia are pups near their birth size of 34 to 38 cm (13 to 15 in); listed as Vulnerable. |
| Borneo river shark | Glyphis fowlerae | Name Glyphis, Greek for the notched end of an arrow, for lower front teeth shaped like arrowheads; fowlerae, not covered by ETYFish; FishBase says it honors Sarah Fowler of Naturebureau, UK. Fact Known from 13 specimens, all collected in 1996 in the Kinabatangan River of Sabah, Borneo, in water that is nearly fresh; it reaches 78 cm (31 in). Expeditions in 2010 and 2011 found none, and genetic studies now treat it as the same species as the Ganges shark. |
| Ganges shark | Glyphis gangeticus | Name Glyphis, Greek for the notched end of an arrow, for lower front teeth shaped like arrowheads; gangeticus, for the Ganges River, where Müller and Henle wrongly believed it lived. Fact A true river shark of the Ganges, Hooghly, Brahmaputra and Mahanadi, reaching about 2 m (6.6 ft), with a 2.66 m (8.7 ft) female landed at Mumbai in 2016 after a decade with no records at all. Its tiny eyes tilt upward, built for spotting backlit prey in murky water, and the Red List estimates fewer than 250 remain; Critically Endangered. |
| Northern river shark | Glyphis garricki | Name Glyphis, Greek for the notched end of an arrow, for lower front teeth shaped like arrowheads; garricki, honors Jack Garrick, the New Zealand shark biologist who revised the requiem sharks. Fact Reaches 2.5 m (8.2 ft) in tidal rivers of northern Australia and Papua New Guinea such as the Ord River and King Sound. The first known specimens were two newborn males from Papua New Guinea found by Jack Garrick, it went by the label Glyphis sp. C until it was named in 2008, and no more than 250 adults exist; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Speartooth shark | Glyphis glyphis | Name Glyphis, Greek for the notched end of an arrow, for lower front teeth shaped like arrowheads; glyphis, a repeat of the genus name. Fact Reaches about 2.6 m (8.5 ft) in the tidal reaches of big tropical rivers of northern Australia and New Guinea such as the Wenlock and Fly rivers. Adults were unknown to science until 2014, when three were found off Daru Island, Papua New Guinea; its small white ringed eyes and many electroreceptors suit hunting in near darkness; listed as Vulnerable. |
| Irrawaddy river shark | Glyphis siamensis | Name Glyphis, Greek for the notched end of an arrow, for lower front teeth shaped like arrowheads; siamensis, not covered by ETYFish. Fact Known from a single 60 cm (24 in) young male caught at the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, Myanmar, in the 1800s and named by Franz Steindachner in 1896. Nothing more has been found in over 100 years, and genetic studies now treat it as the same species as the Ganges shark; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Daggernose shark | Isogomphodon oxyrhynchus | Name Isogomphodon, not explained on ETYFish; oxyrhynchus, Greek for sharp snout, for its long pointed snout. Fact Reaches 1.6 m (5.2 ft) in muddy coastal waters from Trinidad to northern Brazil, 4 to 40 m (13 to 131 ft) deep. Its long flat pointed snout is unique among its relatives and suits hunting by electric sense in the silt laden water of the Amazon plume; no more than 250 remain and it is Critically Endangered. |
| Broadfin shark | Lamiopsis temminckii | Name Lamiopsis, Greek opsis, appearance, with the Lami part unexplained, meaning not explained by its author; temminckii, honors Coenraad Jacob Temminck, director of the Leiden museum, who opened its collections to the authors in 1837. Fact Reaches about 175 cm (5.7 ft) close to shore in the northern Indian Ocean and western Pacific, from Pakistan and India to Sarawak. Litters average about 8 pups born at 42 to 65 cm (16 to 26 in); listed as Endangered. |
| Borneo broadfin shark | Lamiopsis tephrodes | Name Lamiopsis, Greek opsis, appearance, with the Lami part unexplained, meaning not explained by its author; tephrodes, Greek for ash colored stone, for its uniform gray color in alcohol. Fact Reaches 157 cm (5.2 ft) in muddy estuaries and shelf waters shallower than 50 m (164 ft) from Thailand and Cambodia to Indonesia and Borneo. Fowler named it in 1905 but the name sat unused until it was revived and redescribed; litters of about 8 pups are born after about eight months at 40 to 60 cm (16 to 24 in); listed as Endangered. |
| Sliteye shark | Loxodon macrorhinus | Name Loxodon, Greek for slanted tooth, for its oblique tooth cusps; macrorhinus, Greek for large nose, for its long narrow snout. Fact The only member of its genus, a small requiem shark of the tropical Indian and western Pacific oceans at 7 to 100 m (23 to 330 ft), reaching about 95 cm (37 in). Near Threatened. |
| Whitenose shark | Nasolamia velox | Name Nasolamia, Latin nasus, nose, for its large nostrils, plus lamia, an ancient name for a voracious shark; velox, Latin for swift, meaning not explained by its author. Fact The only member of its genus, found in the tropical eastern Pacific at 15 to 200 m (49 to 660 ft) and reaching about 1.5 m (4.9 ft). It bears litters of 5 pups, each born at about 53 cm (21 in). Endangered. |
| Sicklefin lemon shark | Negaprion acutidens | Name Negaprion, Latin nego, denied, plus Greek prion, saw, for teeth without saw edges; acutidens, Latin for sharp tooth. Fact Reaches 380 cm (12.5 ft) across the Indian and Pacific oceans from the Red Sea and South Africa to the Philippines, Australia, Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tahiti. Endangered. |
| Lemon shark | Negaprion brevirostris | Name Negaprion, Latin nego, denied, plus Greek prion, saw, for teeth without saw edges; brevirostris, Latin for short snout, for its short flat rounded snout. Fact Reaches 340 cm (11 ft) in the western Atlantic from New Jersey to southern Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas and the Caribbean, with more off West Africa and in the eastern Pacific. Vulnerable. |
| Blue shark | Prionace glauca | Name Prionace, Greek prion, saw, plus ake, point, for its saw edged upper teeth; glauca, Latin for sea colored blue green, for its blue back. Fact Reaches 400 cm (13 ft) and roams the open oceans of the whole world from the tropics to cool temperate seas, in the western Atlantic from Newfoundland to Argentina. Near Threatened. |
| Milk shark | Rhizoprionodon acutus | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; acutus, Latin for pointed, for its narrow snout. Fact A slender shark of about 1.1 m (3.6 ft) living from the surface to 200 m (660 ft) along the coasts of West Africa and across the Indian and western Pacific oceans, the widest range in its genus. Its English name comes from an Indian belief that eating its meat helps nursing mothers make milk. Vulnerable. |
| Brazilian sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon lalandii | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; lalandii, honors Pierre Antoine Delalande, a naturalist and explorer who helped collect the specimens Valenciennes studied. Fact A slender shark of shallow bays over sand and mud from Panama to southern Brazil and Uruguay at 3 to 70 m (10 to 230 ft), reaching 77 cm (30 in), with a black edged tail. It eats bottom fish and squid and is listed as Vulnerable because of heavy fishing. |
| Pacific sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon longurio | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; longurio, Latin for a tall slender youth, meaning not explained by its author. Fact A coastal shark of the eastern Pacific from southern California to Peru that favors muddy bottoms and migrates with the seasons inside the Gulf of California; the biggest on record was a female of 129.5 cm (4.2 ft). Litters average about 7 pups born at 31 cm (12 in). Vulnerable. |
| Grey sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon oligolinx | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; oligolinx, Greek for short furrow, for its short upper lip groove. Fact A small shallow water shark of about 70 cm (28 in) that lives from the surface to 36 m (118 ft) across the tropics from the Persian Gulf to Thailand, Indonesia, China, Japan and northern Australia, eating crustaceans, fish and squid. Near Threatened. |
| Caribbean sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon porosus | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; porosus, Latin for pored, for enlarged pores on both sides of the head. Fact Lives in the Caribbean and tropical western Atlantic from the surface to 500 m (1,640 ft), reaching 110 cm (43 in). It was long confused with the Atlantic sharpnose shark until counts of its backbones proved it a separate species, and it lives only 8 to 10 years. Vulnerable. |
| Australian sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon taylori | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; taylori, honors Frank Henry Taylor, an entomologist at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Australia, who collected the holotype. Fact A small shark of about 70 cm (28 in) off northern Australia and Papua New Guinea from the surface to 110 m (360 ft), one of the fastest growing sharks known, mature at about one year old. It sometimes eats sea snakes. Least Concern. |
| Atlantic sharpnose shark | Rhizoprionodon terraenovae | Name Rhizoprionodon, Greek for root, saw and tooth, for teeth with saw edged bases; terraenovae, Latin for Newfoundland, where Richardson wrongly thought it lived. Fact A small coastal shark of the western Atlantic from New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, reaching about 120 cm (3.9 ft) and usually swimming in water less than 10 m (33 ft) deep. It bears 4 to 6 pups after a 10 to 11 month pregnancy and can live 19 years. Least Concern. |
| Spadenose shark | Scoliodon laticaudus | Name Scoliodon, Greek for curved tooth, for teeth that point sideways; laticaudus, Latin for wide tail, meaning not explained by its author. Fact A trowel snouted shark of 74 cm (29 in) hugging the coasts from Tanzania to India, Java, Taiwan and Japan at about 10 to 13 m (33 to 43 ft). It has the most advanced placenta of any fish: its eggs are only 1 mm across and the embryo starts feeding from its mother when just 3 mm long, with 6 to 18 pups born after 5 to 6 months. Near Threatened. |
| Pacific spadenose shark | Scoliodon macrorhynchos | Name Scoliodon, Greek for curved tooth, for teeth that point sideways; macrorhynchos, Greek for long snout, for its long flattened snout. Fact Long lumped with the spadenose shark until 2010, it lives in shallow inshore waters from Thailand and Borneo to China, Taiwan and Japan, thickest near big river mouths such as the Pearl River, and reaches 80 cm (31 in). Adult males grow long bendable front teeth that females lack. Near Threatened. |
| Whitetip reef shark | Triaenodon obesus | Name Triaenodon, Greek for trident tooth, for teeth with one big cusp and two small ones; obesus, Latin for fat, for its blunt head that makes it look plump. Fact Reaches 213 cm (7 ft) on reefs from the Red Sea and East Africa to Indonesia, Japan and New South Wales, and in the eastern Pacific from the Galapagos and Cocos islands to Panama and Costa Rica. Vulnerable. |
Tiger shark Galeocerdonidae · 1 species
One species, given its own family in 2021. The striped eating machine of warm seas.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tiger shark | Galeocerdo cuvier | Name Galeocerdo, galeo from the shark genus Galeus plus Greek kerdo, wily one or fox, meaning not fully explained by its author; cuvier, honors Georges Cuvier, the French naturalist who wrote Le Règne Animal. Fact Reaches 5.5 m (18 ft) and 1,524 kg (3,360 lb), a pregnant female caught off Australia, and dives to nearly 900 m (3,000 ft). It eats a wider range of food than any other shark, from sea turtles to trash, earning the nickname garbage can of the sea, and the dark stripes of the young fade with age; listed as Near Threatened. |
Weasel sharks Hemigaleidae · 8 species
Small to medium coastal sharks of the Indo-Pacific and West Africa with a wavy mouth and oval eyes.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hooktooth shark | Chaenogaleus macrostoma | Name Chaenogaleus, Greek for gaping shark, for its wide mouth; macrostoma, Greek for large mouth, for its long arched mouth. Fact The only living member of its genus, a weasel shark of about 1 m (3 ft 3 in) found from the Persian Gulf to India, Thailand, China, Taiwan and Indonesia, from the surface to 59 m (194 ft). It eats small fish, squid, octopus and crustaceans. Vulnerable. |
| Australian weasel shark | Hemigaleus australiensis | Name Hemigaleus, Greek for half Galeus, for its kinship with that genus; australiensis, for its home off tropical Australia. Fact A slim shark of 1.1 m (3.6 ft) on the shelves of northern Australia down to 170 m (560 ft) that eats almost nothing but octopus once it passes 90 cm (35 in). Pregnancy lasts only about six months and females bear up to 19 pups, usually twice a year. Least Concern. |
| Sicklefin weasel shark | Hemigaleus microstoma | Name Hemigaleus, Greek for half Galeus, for its kinship with that genus; microstoma, Greek for small mouth, for its very short arched mouth. Fact A sickle finned shark of 1.1 m (3.6 ft) from southern India and Sri Lanka to China, Taiwan, Java and Borneo, down to 170 m (560 ft), that feeds almost entirely on squid and octopus. Litters hold only 2 to 4 pups, born at about 45 cm (18 in). Vulnerable. |
| Snaggletooth shark | Hemipristis elongata | Name Hemipristis, Greek for half saw, meaning not explained by its author; elongata, Latin for prolonged, for its long slim body. Fact The biggest of the weasel sharks, reaching 240 cm (7.9 ft) in coastal waters from the Red Sea and southeast Africa to the Philippines, China and Australia at 1 to 130 m (3 to 430 ft). Its upper teeth are saw edged and its lower teeth hooked, and it eats fish, rays, other sharks, crabs and squid. Endangered. |
| Whitetip weasel shark | Paragaleus leucolomatus | Name Paragaleus, Greek para, near, for teeth midway between Hemigaleus and Galeorhinus; leucolomatus, Greek for white border, for the white tips and edges of most fins. Fact Known from a single shark 96 cm (38 in) long caught in Kosi Bay, South Africa, and described in 1985. A blurry image filmed for a television show in 2020 is thought to be the only other sighting. Vulnerable. |
| Atlantic weasel shark | Paragaleus pectoralis | Name Paragaleus, Greek para, near, for teeth midway between Hemigaleus and Galeorhinus; pectoralis, Latin for pectoral, meaning not explained by its author. Fact A gray shark with yellow stripes along its sides, living in the surf zone and down to 100 m (330 ft) along West Africa from Mauritania to Angola and the Cape Verde Islands, reaching 138 cm (4.5 ft). It eats mostly squid and octopus and bears 1 to 4 pups. Endangered. |
| Slender weasel shark | Paragaleus randalli | Name Paragaleus, Greek para, near, for teeth midway between Hemigaleus and Galeorhinus; randalli, not covered by ETYFish, which treats it as a synonym of P. longicaudatus. Fact A small weasel shark of the Persian Gulf and western Indian Ocean, described in 1996 and reaching only 48 cm (19 in), with a wedge shaped snout marked underneath by two dusky stripes. Dissected specimens had eaten mostly squid and octopus. Vulnerable. |
| Straighttooth weasel shark | Paragaleus tengi | Name Paragaleus, Greek para, near, for teeth midway between Hemigaleus and Galeorhinus; tengi, honors Teng Huo Tu, director of the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute and expert on Taiwan's sharks and rays. Fact A little known plain gray inshore shark of the western Pacific from Japan to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Vietnam, reaching 88 cm (35 in) and bearing live young through a placenta. Endangered. |
Barbeled houndshark Leptochariidae · 1 species
One species off West Africa, with a tiny barbel at each nostril.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Barbeled houndshark | Leptocharias smithii | Name Leptocharias, Greek leptos, slender, plus a short form of Carcharias, a slender shark; smithii, honors Andrew Smith, a Scottish army doctor and zoologist who collected South African sharks. Fact Reaches 82 cm (32 in) over mud near river mouths off West Africa from Mauritania to Angola, 10 to 75 m (33 to 246 ft) deep. Males have greatly enlarged front teeth, and its ball shaped yolk sac placenta is unlike that of any other shark; listed as Vulnerable. |
Deepwater catsharks Pentanchidae · 111 species
The catsharks without a crest of enlarged denticles on the tail: ghost catsharks, shysharks, swellsharks and the sawtail catsharks, most of them from deep water.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| White-bodied catshark | Apristurus albisoma | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; albisoma, Latin and Greek for white body, for its whitish color. Fact A small whitish bottom shark living in a narrow depth band on the island and seamount slopes around New Caledonia and the West Norfolk Ridge north of New Zealand. Its known range covers under 2,000 square km. |
| Roughskin catshark | Apristurus ampliceps | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; ampliceps, Latin for large headed. Fact A plain brown to blackish deep sea catshark of New Zealand and Australia living at 800 to 1,503 m (2,620 to 4,930 ft) and reaching 85.5 cm (34 in). It was described in 2008 and is listed as Least Concern. |
| White ghost catshark | Apristurus aphyodes | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; aphyodes, Greek for whitish, for its pale gray color. Fact A uniformly whitish shark of 54 cm (21 in) living at 1,014 to 1,800 m in the Rockall Trough off Scotland and nearby North Atlantic deeps. Its first dorsal fin is smaller than its second, and it is known from only a limited number of specimens. |
| Pinocchio catshark | Apristurus australis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; australis, Latin for southern, for its home in the southern hemisphere around Australia. Fact A deep sea catshark of both the Indian and Pacific coasts of Australia at 486 to 1,035 m (1,590 to 3,400 ft), reaching 62 cm (24 in). Named in 2008, it lays egg cases that taper to a point at one end and carry none of the curly tendrils most catshark eggs use to anchor themselves. Least Concern. |
| Shortbelly catshark | Apristurus breviventralis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; breviventralis, Latin for short belly, for its very short abdomen. Fact Lives at 1,000 to 1,120 m in the Gulf of Aden and off the Socotra Islands and reaches 48.5 cm (19 in). Its tiny skin scales give it a velvety feel. |
| Brown catshark | Apristurus brunneus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; brunneus, Latin for brown, for its uniform warm brown color. Fact Found from British Columbia to Baja California at 30 to 650 m and reaches 68 cm (27 in). Its body is soft and flabby with skin so weak it tears easily, and its clear egg cases hang from hard surfaces by long tendrils. |
| Bighead catshark | Apristurus bucephalus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; bucephalus, Greek for bull headed, meaning big, for its large broad head. Fact A yellowish brown catshark taken off Western Australia at 1,030 to 1,140 m (3,380 to 3,740 ft), with the largest known female at 67.5 cm (27 in). Adult females carry teeth with five cusps, one of them very long. The IUCN lists it as Data Deficient. |
| Hoary catshark | Apristurus canutus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; canutus, Latin for hoary, for its dark gray skin flecked with tiny white spots under the scales. Fact Lives in the Caribbean at 521 to 915 m and reaches 45.5 cm (18 in). It lays eggs and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Flaccid catshark | Apristurus exsanguis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; exsanguis, Latin for bloodless, for its pale color and limp body. Fact Found only around New Zealand, most abundant below 1,000 m. It is the only shark regularly taken in research trawls below 1,200 m on the Chatham Rise, so much of its population lives beyond the reach of fishing. |
| Fedorov's catshark | Apristurus fedorovi | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; fedorovi, for Russian ichthyologist Vladimir Fedorov, the first to collect it. Fact Fewer than 30 specimens have ever been reported, all from around 1,200 m off northern Japan. Almost nothing is known about how it lives. |
| Garrick's catshark | Apristurus garricki | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; garricki, for New Zealand shark biologist Jack Garrick, the first to recognize the genus in New Zealand waters. Fact A very long snouted shark of northern New Zealand, described in 2013; females reach 73.5 cm (29 in). It is listed as Least Concern. |
| Humpback catshark | Apristurus gibbosus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; gibbosus, Latin for humpbacked, for the arched line of its back. Fact Lives in the South China Sea off Zhujiang down to 915 m and is poorly studied. The largest specimen examined measured 54.2 cm (21 in), and it lays eggs. |
| Longfin catshark | Apristurus herklotsi | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; herklotsi, for Geoffrey Herklots, a botanist and bird expert at the University of Hong Kong. Fact Lives at 530 to 865 m from Japan to the Philippines, where the water is only about 6 to 11 °C (43 to 52 °F). It reaches 48 cm (19 in) and its population takes more than 14 years to double. |
| Smallbelly catshark | Apristurus indicus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; indicus, belonging to the Indian Ocean off Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, where it was found. Fact Lives on the continental slopes off Somalia, Oman and the Gulf of Aden at 1,300 to 1,840 m, so deep that it is still poorly known. The largest specimen measured, an immature shark, was 34 cm (13 in), and it is the species the whole genus was built around in 1913. |
| Shortnose demon catshark | Apristurus internatus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; internatus, Latin for growing between, a meaning its authors never explained. Fact Known from only two specimens, a 49.1 cm (19 in) female and a 40.3 cm male, both caught in deep water of the East China Sea. |
| Broadnose catshark | Apristurus investigatoris | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; investigatoris, for the survey ship Investigator, at whose station in the Andaman Sea the first specimen was collected. Fact Known from a single specimen, an immature shark of about 26 cm (10 in) from deep water in the Andaman Sea, described in 1962. |
| Copy catshark | Apristurus iterum | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; iterum, Latin for again, because it was the second new Apristurus found in two years from the shape of its egg cases. Fact Known only from one shark, a pregnant female 53.7 cm (21 in) long carrying 10 egg cases, caught at 790 to 1,000 m off southern Queensland, Australia. It was named in 2025 after its ridged egg cases and DNA from the preserved specimen showed it was new. |
| Japanese catshark | Apristurus japonicus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; japonicus, belonging to Japan, its only known home. Fact Known only from the sea off Chiba Prefecture on Honshu, Japan, where trawlers catch it often. Local people use it for oil, food and fish cakes. |
| Longnose catshark | Apristurus kampae | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; kampae, for Elizabeth Kampa Boden, chief scientist on the research ship Argos that caught the first specimen. Fact Lives from Washington State to the Gulf of California at 180 to 1,888 m, with pregnant females mostly at 1,000 to 1,250 m. The largest measured was 64.7 cm (25 in), and its vase shaped egg cases have no tendrils. |
| Iceland catshark | Apristurus laurussonii | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; laurussonii, for Gísli Lárusson, an Icelandic goldsmith, watchmaker and farmer who helped fish studies near the place it was found. Fact Lives on both sides of the Atlantic at 550 to 1,450 m, from Iceland and Massachusetts south to the Canary Islands, the Gulf of Mexico and South Africa. It reaches about 67 cm (26 in) and is plain dark brown with a broad bell shaped snout. |
| Longhead catshark | Apristurus longicephalus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; longicephalus, Latin and Greek for long head, which is about a quarter of its length. Fact The only cartilaginous fish known to be normally hermaphroditic: about 85 percent of individuals carry undeveloped sex organs of the opposite sex as well. It reaches 59 cm (23 in), lives at 500 to 1,140 m in scattered spots across the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the first specimen was caught in Tosa Bay, Japan, on 12 May 1972. |
| Flathead catshark | Apristurus macrorhynchus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; macrorhynchus, Greek for long snout, for its long, sharply pointed snout. Fact Lives in deep water of the northwestern Pacific and is told from its relatives by its long, sharply pointed snout. It is listed as Least Concern. |
| Broadmouth catshark | Apristurus macrostomus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; macrostomus, Greek for big mouth, the widest among its South China Sea relatives. Fact Known from a single specimen about 38 cm (15 in) long, taken at 913 m off Zhujiang in the South China Sea and described in 1985. |
| Ghost catshark | Apristurus manis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; manis, Latin for ghost, for its grayish white color. Fact Reaches 85 cm (33 in) and lives just above the seabed at 600 to 1,900 m, in spots as far apart as Massachusetts, the Porcupine Bank west of Ireland and Cape Town. Eggs are laid in pairs. |
| Manocherian's catshark | Apristurus manocheriani | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; manocheriani, for Greg Manocherian, an American developer and philanthropist who supports shark research. Fact Described in 2021 from Walters Shoal on the Madagascar Ridge in the southwestern Indian Ocean, at 89 to 1,300 m. It is uniformly whitish with a bright white spot on the tip of the tail, and reaches 55.8 cm (22 in). |
| Black roughscale catshark | Apristurus melanoasper | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; melanoasper, Greek and Latin for black rough, for its black color and rough skin. Fact Reaches 90 cm (35 in) and lives at 510 to 1,520 m across the North Atlantic, the southeastern Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the seas around Australia and New Zealand. |
| Smalleye catshark | Apristurus microps | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; microps, Greek for small eye, the smallest eyes of any species then placed in Scyliorhinus. Fact Lives in the southeastern Atlantic at 700 to 2,000 m and reaches 61 cm (24 in). It lays eggs and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Smalldorsal catshark | Apristurus micropterygeus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; micropterygeus, Greek for small finned, since its first dorsal fin is about one ninth the size of the second. Fact Known from the South China Sea down to 915 m and reaching 37 cm (15 in). Its only specimen has a narrow, sharply pointed first dorsal fin unlike any other species, and later researchers asked for a fresh look at it once more sharks turn up. |
| Milkeye catshark | Apristurus nakayai | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; nakayai, for Kazuhiro Nakaya of Hokkaido University, who revised the genus and named eight new species. Fact Known only from off New Caledonia at 953 to 1,022 m, reaching 67.6 cm (27 in). Fresh specimens have a shiny white iris in each eye, set in a brownish black body. |
| Largenose catshark | Apristurus nasutus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; nasutus, Latin for big nosed, for its long snout. Fact Reaches 70 cm (28 in) and lives on the upper continental slopes from the Gulf of Panama to central Chile. Unusually for a deep sea shark, individuals stay together and travel as a group. |
| Ridgeegg catshark | Apristurus ovicorrugatus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; ovicorrugatus, Latin for wrinkled egg, for its ridged egg case, unique in the genus. Fact Discovered backward: scientists in 2023 traced strange egg cases with T shaped ridges in an Australian museum to a female shark caught off northwestern Australia in 1992 and mislabeled ever since. It has bright white eyes, rare in a deep sea shark, and lays the only ridged egg case in its genus. |
| Smallfin catshark | Apristurus parvipinnis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; parvipinnis, Latin for small fin, for a first dorsal fin two to four times smaller than the second. Fact Lives in the western Atlantic over a huge depth span of 35 to 1,115 m and reaches 48 cm (19 in). It is listed as Least Concern. |
| Fat catshark | Apristurus pinguis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; pinguis, Latin for fat, for its stout body. Fact Reaches 83.5 cm (33 in) and lives in deep water of the East China Sea and around New Zealand, on the Chatham Rise and Campbell Plateau. Its palate and tongue are dark. |
| Borneo catshark | Apristurus platyrhynchus | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; platyrhynchus, Greek for flat snout, shorter and wider than that of Apristurus macrorhynchus. Fact One of the larger members of its genus at 80 cm (31 in), living in the western Pacific from Japan south to the equator. It is listed as Least Concern. |
| Deepwater catshark | Apristurus profundorum | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; profundorum, Latin for of the deep, since the first specimen was hauled up from 1,492 m. Fact Lives on both sides of the Atlantic, from Delaware Bay to Suriname and from Morocco down northwest Africa. Its vertebrae are so weakly hardened that they show no growth rings, so scientists cannot count its age the usual way. |
| Broadgill catshark | Apristurus riveri | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; riveri, for Luis Howell Rivero, a Cuban biologist who advanced the study of Cuban fishes. Fact Lives on the seafloor at 700 to 1,500 m in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, from Florida and Cuba south to Venezuela, and reaches 46 cm (18 in). Its egg cases are smooth, see through and greenish. |
| Saldanha catshark | Apristurus saldanha | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; saldanha, for Saldanha Bay, South Africa, where it was first found. Fact A stout, plain dark gray brown shark that reaches 88 cm (35 in), one of the biggest in its genus. It lives off South Africa from Cape Columbine to south of False Bay. |
| Pale catshark | Apristurus sibogae | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; sibogae, for the ship Siboga, whose Indonesian expedition of 1898 to 1899 collected the first specimen. Fact Known from a single specimen, a juvenile just 21 cm (8.3 in) long taken at 655 m on the slope of the Makassar Strait, Indonesia, and described in 1913. |
| South China catshark | Apristurus sinensis | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; sinensis, belonging to China, for the South China Sea. Fact Known from a single immature specimen 42 cm (17 in) long, collected at 537 m in the South China Sea and described in 1981. It is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Spongehead catshark | Apristurus spongiceps | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; spongiceps, Latin for sponge head, for its soft spongy snout. Fact Known from only two specimens, an adult of 51 cm (20 in) caught near Bird Island, Hawaii, and a 10.5 cm juvenile from the Banda Sea off Sulawesi. It was first seen alive in 2002 from the submersible Pisces IV on the Northampton Seamount, and its tightly packed skin scales feel like felt. |
| Panama ghost catshark | Apristurus stenseni | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; stenseni, for Niels Stensen (Nicolas Steno), the 17th century Danish anatomist who studied shark anatomy. Fact Known only from off Panama at 915 to 975 m. The largest measured was about 23 cm (9 in), and the shark is so little known that its full adult size is unknown. |
| Yang's longnose catshark | Apristurus yangi | Name Apristurus, Greek for without a saw, because it lacks the sawtooth crest on the tail fin seen in Galeus; yangi, for Lei Yang of the College of Charleston, for DNA studies of sharks and rays. Fact Known from Papua New Guinea at 630 to 786 m, with a very long snout tipped in black. The largest, a female of 43.7 cm (17 in), carried a single egg capsule about 5.9 cm long. |
| Australian spotted catshark | Asymbolus analis | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); analis, Latin for anal, probably because its anal fin is bigger than its second dorsal fin. Fact A reef catshark found only in the temperate waters of eastern Australia, usually at 10 to 60 m (33 to 200 ft), reaching 90 cm (35 in) and laying its eggs in pairs. Least Concern. |
| Blotched catshark | Asymbolus funebris | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); funebris, Latin for funereal, for its somber, duller colors compared with its relatives. Fact A stocky headed catshark of Western Australia known down to 144 m (470 ft), reaching 44 cm (17 in), with dark brown blotches and saddles and none of the white or black spots its relatives wear. It lays its eggs in pairs. Data Deficient. |
| Starry catshark | Asymbolus galacticus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); galacticus, Greek for milky, for the milky white patches on its skin that look like the Milky Way. Fact Named in 2008 from New Caledonia at 235 to 550 m (770 to 1,800 ft), it reaches 48 cm (19 in) and its skin carries milky white blotches ringed with rusty brown spots like stars. Least Concern. |
| Western spotted catshark | Asymbolus occiduus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); occiduus, Latin for western, for its range in western Australian seas. Fact A small catshark of southwestern Australia at 98 to 400 m (320 to 1,310 ft), reaching 60 cm (24 in) and laying its eggs in pairs. It was named in 1999 and turns up as bycatch in trawls. Least Concern. |
| Pale-spotted catshark | Asymbolus pallidus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); pallidus, Latin for pale, because its body is much paler than its relatives. Fact A pale catshark with sharp edged dark brown spots, found off Queensland at 225 to 402 m (740 to 1,320 ft) and reaching only 47 cm (18 in). It lays its eggs in pairs. Least Concern. |
| Dwarf catshark | Asymbolus parvus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); parvus, Latin for small, for its small size next to its relatives. Fact One of the smallest catsharks, a pale brown shark of Western Australia at 160 to 260 m (520 to 850 ft) that tops out at 36 cm (14 in) and is dappled with white spots and blotches. It lays its eggs in pairs. Least Concern. |
| Orange-spotted catshark | Asymbolus rubiginosus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); rubiginosus, Latin for rusty, for its body color. Fact A rust spotted catshark found only off Western Australia at 25 to 540 m (82 to 1,770 ft), reaching just 39 cm (15 in). Named in 1999, it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Variegated catshark | Asymbolus submaculatus | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); submaculatus, Latin for spotted underneath, since just over half of the first specimens had spots on the belly. Fact A catshark of Western Australia and New South Wales at 30 to 200 m (98 to 660 ft), reaching 44 cm (17 in), patterned with many colored blotches overlaid with black spots. It lays its eggs in pairs. Least Concern. |
| Gulf catshark | Asymbolus vincenti | Name Asymbolus, meaning not explained by its author (possibly Greek for without a lump); vincenti, not explained by Zietz, probably for Gulf St Vincent near Kangaroo Island, South Australia, where it was found. Fact Lives on reefs and across the shelf of southern Australia at 27 to 650 m (89 to 2,130 ft), reaching 61 cm (24 in). It lays its eggs in pairs, one case in each oviduct at a time. Least Concern. |
| Arabian catshark | Bythaelurus alcockii | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; alcockii, for British naturalist Alfred William Alcock, who first noted the shark was distinct in 1896. Fact Known from a single specimen only 30 cm (12 in) long, trawled from the slope of the Arabian Sea at 1,134 to 1,263 m (3,720 to 4,140 ft) and named in 1913. No one has caught another since, and the IUCN lists it as Data Deficient. |
| Bach's catshark | Bythaelurus bachi | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; bachi, for composer Johann Sebastian Bach, out of the lead author's admiration rather than any feature of the shark. Fact Named in 2016 from Walters Shoals on the Madagascar Ridge at 910 to 1,365 m (2,990 to 4,480 ft), it reaches 44.5 cm (17.5 in) and hatches at about 12 cm (5 in). A double row of about 20 blunt enlarged scales runs along its back, and its tongue and palate are crowded with fleshy bumps. Data Deficient. |
| Dusky catshark | Bythaelurus canescens | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; canescens, Latin for hoary gray, for its gray color in preservative, though it is brown in life. Fact Lives on the muddy upper slopes off Peru and Chile south to the Straits of Magellan at 250 to 700 m (820 to 2,300 ft), reaching 70 cm (28 in) and eating bottom invertebrates. It lays eggs and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Broadhead catshark | Bythaelurus clevai | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; clevai, for Régis Cléva of the Paris natural history museum, who collected the first specimen. Fact A deep water catshark of the slope off Madagascar, where the first specimen came up from 425 to 500 m (1,390 to 1,640 ft). So little is known that FishBase lists no size, diet or breeding details for it. |
| New Zealand catshark | Bythaelurus dawsoni | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; dawsoni, for Elliot W. Dawson, who brought the first specimens to Springer's attention. Fact Found only around New Zealand on the outer shelf and upper slope at 50 to 1,200 m (160 to 3,940 ft), reaching 45 cm (18 in). Unlike most catsharks it gives birth to live young, born at under 20 cm (8 in), and it eats bottom crustaceans. Least Concern. |
| Jaguar catshark | Bythaelurus giddingsi | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; giddingsi, for Al Giddings, an American underwater filmmaker and friend of the authors. Fact A chocolate brown catshark named in 2012 and found only around the Galapagos Islands, where it rests on sand and mud near lava boulders at 428 to 562 m (1,400 to 1,840 ft). It reaches 45 cm (18 in) and its pale spots differ from one side of the body to the other. Least Concern. |
| Bristly catshark | Bythaelurus hispidus | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; hispidus, Latin for bristly, for skin covered in tiny stony three pointed spines. Fact The smallest shark in its genus at about 20 to 26 cm (8 to 10 in), a plain pale brown shark of the outer shelf and slope off southeastern India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Andaman Islands from 200 m (660 ft) down to 1,262 m (4,140 ft). Young ones eat deep sea mud shrimp. Near Threatened. |
| Spotless catshark | Bythaelurus immaculatus | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; immaculatus, Latin for unspotted, since it has no markings. Fact Known only from the slope of the South China Sea about 380 to 400 km (240 to 250 mi) east of Hainan Island at 534 to 1,020 m (1,750 to 3,350 ft), reaching 76 cm (30 in). Described in 1982, it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Sombre catshark | Bythaelurus incanus | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; incanus, Latin for quite gray, for its body and fin color. Fact A plain grayish brown catshark named in 2008 from deep water off Australia at 900 to 1,000 m (2,950 to 3,280 ft), reaching 45 cm (18 in), with about 100 rows of tiny teeth in each jaw. Data Deficient. |
| Mud catshark | Bythaelurus lutarius | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; lutarius, Latin for of the mud, for its life on or just above muddy bottoms at 338 to 766 m. Fact A tiny slope shark of Mozambique and Somalia living over mud at 338 to 766 m (1,110 to 2,510 ft), reaching only 39 cm (15 in). It bears live young, just 2 pups per litter, and eats squid, small fish and crustaceans. Data Deficient. |
| Duskysnout catshark | Bythaelurus naylori | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; naylori, for Gavin Naylor, for his DNA studies of shark classification. Fact Named in 2015 from seamounts on the Southwest Indian Ridge, far out in the high seas between Africa and Antarctica, at depths down to 1,443 m (4,730 ft). It reaches 55 cm (22 in) and the IUCN lists it as Data Deficient. |
| Error Seamount catshark | Bythaelurus stewarti | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; stewarti, for the late Rob Stewart, Canadian filmmaker and shark conservationist who inspired the second author. Fact Known only from Error Seamount, a lone undersea mountain in the northwestern Indian Ocean, at 380 to 420 m (1,250 to 1,380 ft). It reaches 42.5 cm (17 in) and is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Narrowhead catshark | Bythaelurus tenuicephalus | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; tenuicephalus, Latin and Greek for thin head, for its narrow head and snout. Fact Named in 2015 from the slope off Tanzania and Mozambique at 463 to 550 m (1,520 to 1,800 ft), it stands out from its relatives by its unusually narrow head and snout. Least Concern. |
| Vivaldi's catshark | Bythaelurus vivaldii | Name Bythaelurus, Greek for deep cat, for its deep water home; vivaldii, for composer Antonio Vivaldi, chosen to pair it with its relative Bythaelurus bachi. Fact Named in 2017 from deep water off Somalia down to 628 m (2,060 ft), with the biggest known female only 32.5 cm (13 in) long. Seen from above its snout is shaped like a bell, and faint dark bars cross its beige back. Data Deficient. |
| Lollipop catshark | Cephalurus cephalus | Name Cephalurus, Greek for head cat, for its broad flattened head; cephalus, Greek for head, since the head is much wider than that of the similar Parmaturus xaniurus. Fact Its enlarged, flattened head makes up about a third of its body and gives it a tadpole shape, with swollen gills that help it breathe in water with almost no oxygen. It is tiny, 28 cm (11 in) at most, lives at 155 to 937 m from the Gulf of California to southern Baja California, and gives birth to live young about 10 cm long. |
| Australian sawtail catshark | Figaro boardmani | Name Figaro, probably for the barber in the famous plays and operas, though Whitley never said why; boardmani, for William Boardman, a bird specialist at the Australian Museum who picked the first specimen off a trawler. Fact Lives on the outer shelf and upper slope off southern Australia at 85 to 823 m, from Western Australia around Tasmania to Queensland, and reaches 61 cm (24 in). It wears 12 or 13 dark saddles, carries sawlike crests on both edges of its tail, and often gathers in groups of a single sex. |
| Northern sawtail catshark | Figaro striatus | Name Figaro, probably for the barber in the famous plays and operas, though Whitley never said why; striatus, Latin for striped, for its banded color pattern. Fact Found only on the upper slope off Queensland between Rockhampton and Townsville at 300 to 420 m. The first specimens came from survey trawls in the 1980s, the type was caught south of the Saumarez Reefs on 17 November 1985, it reaches 42 cm (17 in) and it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Antilles catshark | Galeus antillensis | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; antillensis, for the Antilles, the West Indies islands where the first specimen was caught. Fact Lives at 293 to 695 m from Florida through the West Indies to Martinique and reaches 46 cm (18 in). Some individuals wear a dark mark with three backward pointing prongs on the head, and the species gathers in large schools. |
| Roughtail catshark | Galeus arae | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; arae, for the Ara, the motor yacht of millionaire collector William K. Vanderbilt II, which caught the first specimens. Fact A small shark of 33 cm (13 in) living at 36 to 732 m from North Carolina to Costa Rica. It is abundant but patchy, with hundreds in some spots and none in others, and it feeds mainly on shrimp. |
| Atlantic sawtail catshark | Galeus atlanticus | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; atlanticus, belonging to the eastern Atlantic where it lives. Fact First described in 1888 from a single specimen caught off Cape Spartel, Morocco. Its whole range covers only about 50,000 square km around the Strait of Gibraltar at 330 to 790 m, it reaches 45 cm (18 in), and it is listed as Near Threatened. |
| Longfin sawtail catshark | Galeus cadenati | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; cadenati, for French ichthyologist Jean Cadenat, who described the similar Galeus polli in 1959. Fact Known only from the Caribbean off Panama and Colombia at 431 to 549 m, where it is rare. The largest specimen was 35 cm (14 in), and no adult male has ever been caught. |
| Corrigan's catshark | Galeus corriganae | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; corriganae, for Australian geneticist Shannon Corrigan, whose DNA work on sharks helped describe it. Fact Known only from Papua New Guinea at 500 to 742 m, from eight measured specimens, the largest 37 cm (15 in). Its pectoral fins have black front edges. |
| Gecko catshark | Galeus eastmani | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; eastmani, a patronym its authors never explained, probably for Charles Rochester Eastman, an American expert on fossil fishes. Fact A schooling shark that is extremely abundant in Japanese waters at 100 to 900 m. It reaches about 40 cm (16 in) and lays vase shaped egg cases about 6 cm long, one from each of its two oviducts. |
| Philippines sawtail catshark | Galeus friedrichi | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; friedrichi, for German philanthropist Jürgen Friedrich, a supporter of marine conservation. Fact Known from just three specimens, all caught at about 500 m off Dapitan in the Philippines and described in 2022. It reaches about 50 cm (20 in) and has more vertebrae than any other catshark. |
| Slender sawtail catshark | Galeus gracilis | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; gracilis, Latin for slender, for its thin firm body. Fact Apparently rare off northern Australia at 290 to 470 m; the type specimen, a 34 cm (13 in) female, was caught north of Melville Island in January 1988. Adult males have twisted, sawlike tips on their claspers. |
| Longnose sawtail catshark | Galeus longirostris | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; longirostris, Latin for long snout, much longer than in any relative known in 1987. Fact One of the biggest in its genus at 80 cm (31 in) or more, living at 350 to 550 m on island slopes south of Japan. The first specimen was hooked off the Ogasawara Islands in 1983, and almost nothing is known of its life. |
| Blackmouth catshark | Galeus melastomus | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; melastomus, Greek for black mouth, for the dark inside of its mouth. Fact Reaches 79 cm (31 in) in the Atlantic and lives on continental slopes at 150 to 1,400 m, with records as deep as 3,850 m in the eastern Mediterranean. A female lays an estimated 60 to 100 eggs a year, all year round. |
| Southern sawtail catshark | Galeus mincaronei | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; mincaronei, for Michael Maia Mincarone, collections manager at a Brazilian oceanographic museum. Fact Found only off southern Brazil at 236 to 600 m, in a range under 20,000 square km. The first specimens turned up in experimental fish traps off Rio Grande do Sul in 1988; it reaches 43 cm (17 in) and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Mouse catshark | Galeus murinus | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; murinus, Latin for mouse gray, for its plain gray color. Fact Lives at 380 to 1,300 m in the northeastern Atlantic from Iceland to Western Sahara and reaches 49 cm (19 in). Its golden yellow egg cases have a hairy surface, and the first known specimen was an immature female only 22 cm long. |
| Broadfin sawtail catshark | Galeus nipponensis | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; nipponensis, from Nippon, the Japanese name for Japan, its only home. Fact Reaches 68 cm (27 in) and is common off Japan at 150 to 540 m. Adult males have claspers so long they reach past the anal fin, and egg laying peaks in December and January. |
| Peppered catshark | Galeus piperatus | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; piperatus, Latin for peppered, for the fine black dots sprinkled over its body and tail. Fact Found only in the northern Gulf of California at 130 to 1,326 m, reaching 37 cm (15 in). It leaves the northern gulf each summer, the opposite of most of the gulf's migrating fishes, and hatchlings are just 7 to 8 cm long. |
| African sawtail catshark | Galeus polli | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; polli, for Belgian ichthyologist Max Poll, who first drew attention to the species. Fact The only member of its genus that gives birth to live young instead of laying eggs, with litters of up to 12 pups born all year round. It reaches 46 cm (18 in), lives at 160 to 720 m off western Africa and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Phallic catshark | Galeus priapus | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; priapus, for Priapos, the Greek god of fertility, because of the males' very long claspers. Fact Males carry claspers that make up 10 to 11 percent of their body length. The species lives at 620 to 830 m off New Caledonia and Vanuatu, reaches 46 cm (18 in), and the type specimen was trawled by the research ship Alis on 30 March 1994. |
| Blacktip sawtail catshark | Galeus sauteri | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; sauteri, for Hans Sauter, a German businessman and insect collector who bought the first specimens at a fish market in Taiwan. Fact Very common around Taiwan at 60 to 200 m, with a plain ochre back, white belly and dark brown tips on the dorsal and tail fins. It reaches 46 cm (18 in) and breeds all year, laying eggs two at a time. |
| Dwarf sawtail catshark | Galeus schultzi | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; schultzi, for Leonard P. Schultz, Curator of Fishes at the U.S. National Museum, a name first proposed but never published by Henry W. Fowler. Fact Only a few specimens have ever been collected, all from deep water off Luzon in the Philippines at 329 to 431 m. It is one of the smallest in its genus at 30 cm (12 in). |
| Springer's sawtail catshark | Galeus springeri | Name Galeus, the word Aristotle used for a small shark; springeri, for American shark expert Stewart Springer, a leader in catshark classification. Fact Known from the Caribbean at 457 to 699 m, with dark horizontal stripes outlined in white along its back. The type was a 32 cm immature male collected near the Leeward Islands in 1969, the largest specimen is 48 cm (19 in), and no adult male has ever been caught. |
| Speckled catshark | Halaelurus boesemani | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; boesemani, for Marinus Boeseman, curator of fishes at the natural history museum in Leiden. Fact Once thought to range from the Philippines to Australia, it is now known only from the Gulf of Aden and Somalia at 37 to 250 m after the other populations were named as separate species. It reaches 48 cm (19 in) and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Blackspotted catshark | Halaelurus buergeri | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; buergeri, for Heinrich Bürger, a German physician and naturalist who drew Japanese plants and animals and apparently collected the first specimen. Fact A shelf shark of Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan at 80 to 100 m that reaches 49 cm (19 in), with dark spots scattered over its body and fins. Females have been recorded carrying 6 to 12 egg cases, and the species is listed as Endangered. |
| Lined catshark | Halaelurus lineatus | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; lineatus, Latin for lined, for its 13 pairs of narrow dark brown stripes. Fact Lives on soft bottoms from the shore down to 290 m between Beira, Mozambique, and East London, South Africa, and reaches 56 cm (22 in). A female can carry up to 16 egg cases, holding them until the embryos are well developed. |
| Indonesian speckled catshark | Halaelurus maculosus | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; maculosus, Latin for speckled, for the small dark spots over its back and sides. Fact Described in 2007 from the southern coast of Java and off Bali and Lombok in eastern Indonesia, where it turns up in fish landings; females reach 53 cm (21 in). It is listed as Near Threatened. |
| Tiger catshark | Halaelurus natalensis | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; natalensis, for the coast of Natal, South Africa, where the first specimens came from. Fact Lives only off South Africa, from the shore down to about 100 m, and reaches 50 cm (20 in). The mother keeps her eggs inside until the embryos are well grown, so they hatch within one or two months of being laid; the species is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Quagga catshark | Halaelurus quagga | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; quagga, meaning not explained by its author, but surely for its narrow vertical bars like those of the quagga, an extinct zebra. Fact Known from only nine specimens: one taken by the ship Investigator off India's Malabar Coast in 1899, four trawled off Somalia in 1964 and four from trawlers off Quilon, India, in 2010. More than 20 dark bars cross its light brown body, and the largest was 37 cm (15 in). |
| Rusty catshark | Halaelurus sellus | Name Halaelurus, Greek for sea cat; sellus, Latin for saddle, for the dark saddles on its head and body. Fact Lives on the continental shelf off tropical Australia at 62 to 164 m and was named in 2007. It is a small shark, with females reaching 42 cm (17 in) and males 35 cm (14 in). |
| Puffadder shyshark | Haploblepharus edwardsii | Name Haploblepharus, Greek for simple eyelid, for the plain build of its lower eyelid; edwardsii, for English naturalist George Edwards, the first to draw this shark, in 1760. Fact When threatened it curls into a ring and covers its eyes with its tail, earning the local nickname "doughnut." It lives only off South Africa from the tide line to 130 m, reaches 69 cm (27 in), can live at least 22 years and is listed as Endangered. |
| Brown shyshark | Haploblepharus fuscus | Name Haploblepharus, Greek for simple eyelid, for the plain build of its lower eyelid; fuscus, Latin for dusky, for its plain brown color. Fact The largest shyshark at 73 cm (29 in), found only along South Africa's coast in water usually shallower than 35 m. Like its relatives it curls into a circle with its tail over its eyes when scared; it is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Natal shyshark | Haploblepharus kistnasamyi | Name Haploblepharus, Greek for simple eyelid, for the plain build of its lower eyelid; kistnasamyi, for Nat Kistnasamy of the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban, a pioneer of southern African shark study. Fact Its whole range covers under 100 square km of warm inshore water off KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, from the surf zone to 30 m. Long treated as a local form of the puffadder shyshark, it was named a separate species in 2006; it reaches 50 cm (20 in) and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Dark shyshark | Haploblepharus pictus | Name Haploblepharus, Greek for simple eyelid, for the plain build of its lower eyelid; pictus, Latin for painted, for its patterned coloring. Fact Reaches 60 cm (24 in) and crowds the rocky reefs and kelp forests of South Africa and Namibia from the tide line to 35 m. Its eggs take 6 to 10 months to hatch, it does not mature until about 15 years old and it can live 25 years. |
| Honeycomb Izak | Holohalaelurus favus | Name Holohalaelurus, Greek for whole plus Halaelurus (sea cat), because it lacks the lip grooves of that genus; favus, Latin for honeycomb, for the pattern on fresh specimens. Fact A 50 cm (20 in) shark from off South Africa that no one has collected since the mid 1970s, even on research cruises in 2002 and 2003. It is listed as Endangered. |
| Grinning Izak | Holohalaelurus grennian | Name Holohalaelurus, Greek for whole plus Halaelurus (sea cat), because it lacks the lip grooves of that genus; grennian, Old English for grin, for the wide arched mouth and big teeth that give it an ominous smile. Fact Known from the western Indian Ocean off Kenya and described in 2006. So few records exist that it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Crying Izak | Holohalaelurus melanostigma | Name Holohalaelurus, Greek for whole plus Halaelurus (sea cat), because it lacks the lip grooves of that genus; melanostigma, Greek for black mark, probably for the dark spots on its back. Fact Lives at 600 to 660 m off Mozambique and Tanzania and reaches 38 cm (15 in). It is listed as Least Concern. |
| White-spotted Izak | Holohalaelurus punctatus | Name Holohalaelurus, Greek for whole plus Halaelurus (sea cat), because it lacks the lip grooves of that genus; punctatus, Latin for spotted, for the dense small brown spots on its back. Fact A small shark of 34 cm (13 in) living at 220 to 440 m off KwaZulu Natal, Mozambique and Madagascar, with males larger than females, a rare thing among sharks. It matures at about 9 years, lives about 21 years and is listed as Endangered. |
| Izak catshark | Holohalaelurus regani | Name Holohalaelurus, Greek for whole plus Halaelurus (sea cat), because it lacks the lip grooves of that genus; regani, for English ichthyologist Charles Tate Regan, who described many South African fishes. Fact Males reach 69 cm (27 in) while females stop at about 52 cm, the reverse of most sharks. It lives from Namibia to Durban, mostly at 100 to 300 m, with spiky enlarged scales along its back, and its numbers are growing. |
| White-clasper catshark | Parmaturus albipenis | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; albipenis, Latin for white penis, for its white claspers against a dark brown body. Fact Known from a single adult male 41.5 cm (16 in) long, collected at 688 to 732 m off northern New Caledonia and described in 2007. |
| Brazilian filetail catshark | Parmaturus angelae | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; angelae, for Angela, granddaughter of one of the authors. Fact Described in 2019 from the continental slope off southern Brazil at 500 to 600 m, the first of its genus found in the southwestern Atlantic. The largest specimen, a female, measured 42.5 cm (17 in), and it is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Campeche catshark | Parmaturus campechiensis | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; campechiensis, for the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico, where it was found. Fact Known from a single specimen, an immature female just 15.7 cm (6.2 in) long collected at 1,057 m in the northwestern Bay of Campeche and described in 1979. |
| Velvet catshark | Parmaturus lanatus | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; lanatus, Latin for woolly, for the velvety feel of its skin. Fact Known from a single young male 36 cm (14 in) long, taken at 840 to 855 m in the Arafura Sea off the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia, and described in 2007. |
| McMillan's catshark | Parmaturus macmillani | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; macmillani, for Peter McMillan, who collected the first specimen and many other little known deep sea fishes off New Zealand. Fact A rare, little known shark found only around New Zealand on the lower continental slope at 985 to 1,350 m. It reaches 45 cm (18 in) and is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Salamander shark | Parmaturus pilosus | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; pilosus, Latin for hairy, probably for its tiny velvety scales. Fact Lives on the continental slope off Japan and in the East China Sea down to 786 m and reaches 64 cm (25 in). Its liver is rich in squalene oil, and females lay eggs in pairs. |
| Filetail catshark | Parmaturus xaniurus | Name Parmaturus, from Latin parma, a light shield, and Greek oura, tail, for the shield like scales along the upper edge of its tail fin; xaniurus, Greek for comb tailed, for the row of toothlike points along the top of its tail fin. Fact Found from Washington State to the Gulf of California, with adults on the bottom at 91 to 1,251 m while the young swim in open water about 500 m above the seafloor. It reaches 61 cm (24 in) and was one of the cartilaginous fishes most often caught in the U.S. West Coast bottom trawl survey from 2003 to 2011. |
| Onefin catshark | Pentanchus profundicolus | Name Pentanchus, Greek for five gills, since it has five pairs of gill slits; profundicolus, Latin for dwelling in the deep, because the first specimen came up from 1,070 m. Fact Known from only two specimens, both from the Philippines (the Tablas Strait and the Mindanao Sea) at 673 to 1,069 m. It is the only catshark with a single dorsal fin, set far back near the tail, and reaches 51 cm (20 in). |
Bristle sharks Dichichthyidae · 5 species
Five deep-water catsharks with bristly skin, given a family of their own in 2023.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Whitetip bristle shark | Dichichthys albimarginatus | Name Dichichthys, Greek for fish that branches in two, because Chan saw it as halfway between Galeus and Parmaturus on one side and Apristurus on the other; albimarginatus, Latin for white edged, for the broad white margins on its rear fins. Fact Known from a single adult male of 57.7 cm (23 in) trawled at 688 to 732 m in the Grand Passage off New Caledonia in 1994, plus one young shark from Papua New Guinea that is only tentatively the same species. |
| Beige bristle shark | Dichichthys bigus | Name Dichichthys, Greek for fish that branches in two, because Chan saw it as halfway between Galeus and Parmaturus on one side and Apristurus on the other; bigus, Latin for beige, for its plain pale yellow brown color. Fact Known from one collected shark, a pregnant female of 71 cm (28 in) taken at 590 to 606 m south of Saumarez Reef in the Coral Sea in 1985, and one live shark filmed by a robot submarine at 838 to 881 m with parasites clinging to its gills. It is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Blackgill catshark | Dichichthys melanobranchus | Name Dichichthys, Greek for fish that branches in two, because Chan saw it as halfway between Galeus and Parmaturus on one side and Apristurus on the other; melanobranchus, Greek for black gills, for the dark skin between its gill slits. Fact First known from a young female just 23.5 cm long caught in the South China Sea in 1964, whose bristly scales gave the whole family the name bristle sharks. It lives at 448 to 1,110 m from the South China Sea to the Ryukyu Islands, and a female of 85 cm (33 in) has been reported. |
| Indonesian bristle shark | Dichichthys nigripalatum | Name Dichichthys, Greek for fish that branches in two, because Chan saw it as halfway between Galeus and Parmaturus on one side and Apristurus on the other; nigripalatum, Latin for black palate, for the blackish roof of its mouth. Fact Known from a single adult male of 54.8 cm (22 in) caught south of Sumbawa, Indonesia, in 2016, plus one photograph from West Java. The roof of its mouth is black and its fins have dark edges instead of white ones. |
| Roughback bristle shark | Dichichthys satoi | Name Dichichthys, Greek for fish that branches in two, because Chan saw it as halfway between Galeus and Parmaturus on one side and Apristurus on the other; satoi, for Keiichi Sato of the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, the first to show these sharks did not belong in Parmaturus. Fact Named in 2024 in the same paper that created the bristle shark family, from a 95.4 cm (38 in) male caught on the Tony B Seamount on the West Norfolk Ridge in 2005 and 13 more specimens from there and off New Zealand's North Island, at 870 to 1,044 m. The largest, a female, reached 103.8 cm (41 in). |
Coloured catsharks Atelomycteridae · 13 species
A small catshark family split off in 2022: the coral catshark and its kin, patterned reef sharks of the Indo-Pacific.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bali catshark | Atelomycterus baliensis | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril; baliensis, for Bali, Indonesia, the only place it is known to live. Fact Known only from the reefs around Bali, Indonesia, where it reaches at least 47 cm (19 in) and lays egg cases that have a breathing hole at each of the four corners. Described in 2005, it was listed as Vulnerable in 2009 and moved to Least Concern in 2021. |
| Spottedbelly catshark | Atelomycterus erdmanni | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril; named for marine biologist Mark V. Erdmann, who found and collected the type specimens. Fact Described in 2015 from eastern Indonesia, it reaches 51 cm (20 in) and lives on reefs 3 to 62 m (10 to 203 ft) deep. Divers in North Sulawesi and Ambon meet it on night dives, where its white stripe through the gill slits stands out. Least Concern. |
| Banded catshark | Atelomycterus fasciatus | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril; fasciatus, Latin for banded, for its slim brown saddles on a white body. Fact A small shark of northern Australia, up to 45 cm (18 in), living on sandy bottoms 27 to 120 m (89 to 394 ft) down. It was the first shark ever found living inside sponges. Least Concern. |
| Australian marbled catshark | Atelomycterus macleayi | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril; macleayi, for William Macleay, Scottish Australian politician and naturalist who wrote on Australian fishes, a patronym ETYFish calls unconfirmed. Fact Found only off Western Australia, from the surface down to 245 m (800 ft) over sandy and rocky bottoms, and reaching 60 cm (24 in). Least Concern. |
| Coral catshark | Atelomycterus marmoratus | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril, for the missing rear nasal valve; marmoratus, Latin for marbled, for its white blotches over black spots and bars. Fact The most widespread of its genus, it lives on shallow coral reefs from Pakistan to New Guinea no deeper than 15 m (49 ft), reaches 70 cm (28 in), and lays two purse shaped eggs at a time that hatch in four to six months. Its slim body squeezes through tight reef gaps and it has lived 20 years in aquariums. Near Threatened. |
| Eastern banded catshark | Atelomycterus marnkalha | Name Atelomycterus, Greek for incomplete nostril; marnkalha, the Yanyuwa Aboriginal word for this catshark, from the country where an early specimen was recorded. Fact Lives off eastern Queensland and southern Papua New Guinea in 11 to 74 m (36 to 243 ft) of water, mostly shallower than 50 m (164 ft), and reaches about 48 cm (19 in). It eats prawns, crabs, squid and small fishes. Described in 2007, it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Kanakorum catshark | Aulohalaelurus kanakorum | Name Aulohalaelurus, Greek for groove plus Halaelurus, for its deep lip folds; kanakorum, for the Kanak people of New Caledonia, where the shark lives. Fact Known from a single 78.5 cm (31 in) specimen caught by handline off Noumea, New Caledonia, in 1986 at 49 m (161 ft), plus two underwater photographs. Described in 1990, it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Australian blackspotted catshark | Aulohalaelurus labiosus | Name Aulohalaelurus, Greek for groove plus Halaelurus, a catshark genus, for its deep lip folds; labiosus, Latin for large lipped, for the same folds. Fact Found only off southwestern Western Australia on shallow coasts and offshore reefs, it grows to 67 cm (26 in) and hunts at night. Least Concern. |
| Narrowmouthed catshark | Schroederichthys bivius | Name Schroederichthys, for William C. Schroeder of Woods Hole plus Greek for fish; bivius, Latin for two ways, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Lives at the cold tip of South America from central Chile around to Argentina, down to 360 m (1,200 ft), and reaches 70 cm (28 in). Males have a longer, narrower mouth than females and teeth about twice as tall. Least Concern. |
| Redspotted catshark | Schroederichthys chilensis | Name Schroederichthys, for William C. Schroeder of Woods Hole plus Greek for fish; chilensis, for Chile, where it was first described. Fact An inshore shark of the Peru and Chile coast reaching 62 cm (24 in). Males have longer teeth with fewer points than females, which helps them hold on during courtship biting. |
| Narrowtail catshark | Schroederichthys maculatus | Name Schroederichthys, for William C. Schroeder of Woods Hole, a pioneer of shark and ray science, plus Greek for fish; maculatus, Latin for spotted, for its scattered pale spots. Fact A tiny deep water catshark of the Caribbean off Honduras and Nicaragua, living 190 to 412 m (623 to 1,352 ft) down on fine white sediment and reaching only 34 cm (13 in). Least Concern. |
| Lizard catshark | Schroederichthys saurisqualus | Name Schroederichthys, for William C. Schroeder of Woods Hole plus Greek for fish; saurisqualus, Greek lizard plus Latin shark, from the name lizard catshark for its slim body and long tail. Fact Known only from about 600 km (370 mi) of coast off southern Brazil, where it lives on deep coral reefs 250 to 500 m (820 to 1,640 ft) down in water of 5 to 8 C (41 to 46 F). Females reach 69 cm (27 in). Listed as Vulnerable because trawling wrecks the corals it lays its eggs in. |
| Slender catshark | Schroederichthys tenuis | Name Schroederichthys, for William C. Schroeder of Woods Hole plus Greek for fish; tenuis, Latin for thin, for its slender body. Fact Lives on the upper slope off Suriname, French Guiana and northern Brazil, including the mouth of the Amazon, 72 to 450 m (236 to 1,476 ft) down, and reaches 70 cm (28 in). Stomachs have held sponges and even skin denticles from other sharks. Least Concern. |
Finback catsharks Proscylliidae · 7 species
Slender little sharks with a cat-like eye and the first dorsal fin set over the pelvic fins.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Harlequin catshark | Ctenacis fehlmanni | Name Ctenacis, Greek for comb point, for its comb like rear teeth; named for Herman Fehlmann, Smithsonian scientist praised for careful handling of shark specimens. Fact Known from a single 46 cm (18 in) female caught off Somalia between 70 and 170 m (230 and 558 ft) and named in 1968. It is the only member of its genus. |
| Cuban ribbontail catshark | Eridacnis barbouri | Name Eridacnis, meaning not explained by its author; named for Thomas Barbour, Harvard museum director, for help with the authors' shark studies. Fact A small catshark of the western central Atlantic reaching 34 cm (13 in), living 430 to 613 m (1,411 to 2,011 ft) down. Its eggs hatch inside the mother. Least Concern. |
| Pygmy ribbontail catshark | Eridacnis radcliffei | Name Eridacnis, meaning not explained by its author; named for Lewis Radcliffe, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries scientist on the team that collected the first specimen. Fact One of the smallest sharks alive, females reach just 24 cm (9.4 in). It lives on muddy bottoms 71 to 766 m (233 to 2,513 ft) deep from Tanzania to the Philippines and gives birth to one or two pups about 11 cm (4.3 in) long, nearly half the mother's length. |
| African ribbontail catshark | Eridacnis sinuans | Name Eridacnis, meaning not explained by its author; sinuans, Latin for winding, for its slim body and long ribbon like tail. Fact Found off Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa at 180 to 480 m (590 to 1,575 ft), it reaches 37 cm (15 in) and gives birth to two pups at a time. Least Concern. |
| Graceful catshark | Proscyllium habereri | Name Proscyllium, Latin for in front plus Scyllium, an old catshark genus, for its dorsal fin set far forward; named for Karl Albert Haberer, German doctor and collector who gathered the first specimen. Fact Lives in the western Pacific from southern Japan to Vietnam and Java in 50 to 100 m (164 to 328 ft) of water, with females reaching about 65 cm (26 in). Listed as Vulnerable. |
| Magnificent catshark | Proscyllium magnificum | Name Proscyllium, Latin for in front plus Scyllium, for its forward set dorsal fin; magnificum, Latin for splendid, for its strikingly beautiful color pattern. Fact Known from only five specimens taken off Myanmar in the Andaman Sea at 141 to 144 m (463 to 472 ft), the first in a 1989 survey; described in 2004. It has a clown face pattern of dark spots under each dorsal fin and reaches 49 cm (19 in). |
| Proscyllium venustum | Proscyllium venustum | Name Proscyllium, Latin for in front plus Scyllium, for its forward set dorsal fin; venustum, species name not listed on ETYFish. Fact A spotted catshark of Japan's Okinawa Trough described by Tanaka in 1912, reaching 60 cm (24 in) at 50 to 100 m (164 to 328 ft). It lays eggs in pairs, and some scientists think it is the same species as the graceful catshark. |
False catsharks Pseudotriakidae · 5 species
Soft-bodied deep-sea sharks with a long low first dorsal fin; the false catshark reaches 3 m (10 ft).
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slender smooth-hound | Gollum attenuatus | Name Gollum, for the creature in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, whose shape and habits it was thought to match; attenuatus, Latin for drawn out, for its thin, almost eel like body. Fact Found only around New Zealand, mostly 300 to 600 m (980 to 1,970 ft) deep, and reaching 1.1 m (3.6 ft). Each womb holds a capsule of 30 to 80 eggs, and one embryo eats all the others, so litters are two pups. Least Concern. |
| Sulu Gollumshark | Gollum suluensis | Name Gollum, for the Tolkien creature; suluensis, for the Sulu Sea in the Philippines where it was found. Fact Discovered at a fish market on Palawan Island in the Philippines during a 1990s World Wildlife Fund survey and described in 2011. It reaches 58.5 cm (23 in) and is darker and wider headed than its New Zealand relative. Least Concern. |
| Eastern dwarf false catshark | Planonasus indicus | Name Planonasus, Latin for flat nose; indicus, for India, where the first specimen was taken. Fact Described in 2018 from specimens caught by deep sea longliners fishing for gulper sharks off India and Sri Lanka at 200 to 1,000 m (656 to 3,281 ft). It reaches 64 cm (25 in) and is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Dwarf false catshark | Planonasus parini | Name Planonasus, Latin for flat nose, for its soft, flat snout; named for Nikolai Parin, Russian scientist who led the 1988 to 1989 Vityaz cruise that collected the first specimen. Fact Known from the deep northwestern Indian Ocean off the Socotra Islands at 1,000 to 1,120 m (3,281 to 3,675 ft), reaching 53 cm (21 in). Its bell shaped head holds 110 to 120 rows of tiny teeth in each jaw. Described in 2013. |
| False catshark | Pseudotriakis microdon | Name Pseudotriakis, Greek for false Triakis, since it only looks like a houndshark; microdon, Greek for small tooth, for its more than 200 rows of tiny teeth. Fact A soft, flabby deep sea shark up to 3 m (9.8 ft) and 330 kg (730 lb) that lives 500 to 1,400 m (1,640 to 4,593 ft) down worldwide. Its keel like first dorsal fin is about as long as its tail fin, and its oily liver is up to a quarter of its weight. Unborn pups eat eggs their mother keeps releasing; one female held about 20,000 of them. |
Catsharks Scyliorhinidae · 38 species
Small bottom sharks with cat-like eyes that lay eggs in horned cases, the "mermaid's purses" of beaches.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Ambon catshark | Akheilos suwartanai | Name Akheilos, a sea spirit of Greek myth, a boy Aphrodite turned into a shark for boasting he was more beautiful than she was; named for Atjep Suwartana, first director of the oceanology center at Ambon, Indonesia. Fact A pale brown catshark freckled with rusty spots, named in 2019 from Ambon in Indonesia and placed in a genus of its own. It reaches 54 cm (21 in), its only known meal was pieces of a small snake eel, and no one knows how deep it lives. Data Deficient. |
| Whitefin swellshark | Cephaloscyllium albipinnum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; albipinnum, Latin for white finned, for its pale fin edges. Fact Lives off southeastern Australia at 126 to 554 m (413 to 1,818 ft) and reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft). Long mistaken for other swellsharks, it was named in 2008. Critically Endangered after trawl catch rates fell more than 30 percent between the 1970s and 1990s. |
| Cook's swellshark | Cephaloscyllium cooki | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; named for Sidney F. Cook, shark fisheries biologist. Fact Cook's swellshark lives only in the Arafura Sea between northern Australia and Indonesia's Tanimbar Islands, at 223 to 300 m (730 to 980 ft). It is a stocky little catshark of about 30 cm (12 in) with eight dark saddles, and like other swellsharks it gulps water to puff itself up when threatened. |
| Reticulated swellshark | Cephaloscyllium fasciatum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; fasciatum, Latin for banded, for its saddles and rings. Fact A small swellshark of the western Pacific near China, Taiwan and the Philippines, living at 220 to 450 m (722 to 1,476 ft) and reaching 80 cm (31 in). Its young bite their way out of the egg case after about nine months. Listed as Critically Endangered in 2019. |
| Formosa swellshark | Cephaloscyllium formosanum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; formosanum, for Taiwan, once called Formosa, where it was first found. Fact A reef swellshark known from Taiwan down to 366 m (1,200 ft), reaching 66 cm (26 in), with four broad dark saddles across its back ahead of the first dorsal fin and a sprinkling of small white spots. It lays egg cases with notched edges. Least Concern. |
| Australian reticulate swellshark | Cephaloscyllium hiscosellum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; hiscosellum, Latin for open saddled, for its hollow saddle markings. Fact Lives on the upper slope off northwestern Australia between Geraldton and Broome at 290 to 420 m (950 to 1,380 ft). Females reach 52 cm (20 in). Its back is drawn with dark brown lines forming hollow saddles and narrow rings. Named in 2008 after being split from the reticulated swellshark. |
| Draughtsboard shark | Cephaloscyllium isabella | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; isabella, from d'Isabelle, a pale fawn brown color name Broussonet gave it in 1780. Fact A New Zealand and Tasmanian shark usually about 1 m (3.3 ft) long that fills itself with water or air when threatened. When the air rushes back out it makes a sound like a dog barking. Least Concern. |
| Draughtboard shark | Cephaloscyllium laticeps | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; laticeps, Latin for broad headed. Fact A southern Australian shark up to 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) that swallows water or air to swell up and wedge itself into crevices. Females lay a pair of ridged, flask shaped egg cases 13 cm (5 in) long about every 20 days in the first half of the year and can store sperm for 15 months. Least Concern. |
| Painted swellshark | Cephaloscyllium pictum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; pictum, Latin for painted, for its coloring. Fact Known from five sharks bought at fish markets in Bali and Lombok, Indonesia, between 2002 and 2004, and described in 2008. It reaches 72 cm (28 in). The first live video, filmed off Timor Leste in November 2024 at about 570 m (1,870 ft), stretched its known range by more than 1,100 km (680 mi). |
| Sarawak pygmy swellshark | Cephaloscyllium sarawakense | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; sarawakense, for Sarawak, Malaysia. Fact A tiny swellshark of the Pacific shelf edge at 118 to 165 m (387 to 541 ft), reaching just 41 cm (16 in). It keeps a single egg case in each oviduct until the embryo is well along, so it makes fewer but bigger eggs than other sharks. Critically Endangered. |
| Flagtail swellshark | Cephaloscyllium signourum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; signourum, Latin for flag tailed, for the dark flag mark on its tail tip. Fact Known from only a few specimens taken off northeastern Queensland at 480 to 700 m (1,570 to 2,300 ft), the largest a 74 cm (29 in) female. Described in 2008, it carries a V shaped mark on the tip of its tail. Data Deficient. |
| Indian swellshark | Cephaloscyllium silasi | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; named for Eric Godwin Silas, the Indian ichthyologist. Fact A dwarf swellshark of the Arabian Sea off India and Oman, with a range later stretched to the Andaman Sea, living on the slope at 100 to 500 m (328 to 1,640 ft) and reaching about 50 cm (20 in). Critically Endangered because deep water trawlers catch it across its whole range. |
| Speckled swellshark | Cephaloscyllium speccum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; speccum, Latin for speckled, for its dark spots. Fact Found only off Western Australia from the Rowley Shoals to Ashmore Reef at 150 to 455 m (492 to 1,493 ft), reaching 69 cm (27 in). Described in 2008 from a few specimens; the young are yellow with eyespot like marks. Data Deficient. |
| Steven's swellshark | Cephaloscyllium stevensi | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; named for John Stevens, Australian shark scientist whose work backed several new species. Fact Steven's swellshark is known from Papua New Guinea at 240 to 274 m (790 to 900 ft) down, where it reaches 66 cm (26 in). It was described in 2011 by Eugenie Clark and John Randall and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Balloon shark | Cephaloscyllium sufflans | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; sufflans, Latin for puffing, for its inflatable stomach. Fact Lives off KwaZulu Natal and Mozambique at 40 to 600 m (130 to 1,970 ft) and reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft). Like its relatives it blows itself up with water or air to put off predators. Near Threatened. |
| Blotchy swellshark | Cephaloscyllium umbratile | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; umbratile, Latin for shaded, for its dark brown marbling. Fact The biggest swellshark at 1.4 m (4.6 ft), living on rocky reefs from Hokkaido to Taiwan at 90 to 200 m (300 to 660 ft). It breeds all year, laying two 12 cm (4.7 in) egg cases at a time that hatch after about a year. Near Threatened. |
| Saddled swellshark | Cephaloscyllium variegatum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; variegatum, Latin for varied, for its changeable color. Fact Lives off eastern Australia from Queensland to New South Wales at 115 to 605 m (377 to 1,985 ft), reaching 74 cm (29 in). Adults wear 11 dark saddles while young are pale with many brown spots, so different ages were once thought to be two species. Near Threatened. |
| Swellshark | Cephaloscyllium ventriosum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; ventriosum, Latin for big bellied, for its inflatable stomach. Fact Lives from California to Mexico and off Chile, mostly at 5 to 37 m (16 to 121 ft), and reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft). When threatened it bends into a U, grabs its own tail in its mouth and gulps water until it is about twice its normal size. In 2014 it was found to glow green under blue light. Least Concern. |
| Narrowbar swellshark | Cephaloscyllium zebrum | Name Cephaloscyllium, Greek for head plus a word for small shark; zebrum, from the Amharic word for zebra, for its narrow bars. Fact Known from just two sharks trawled at Flinders Reef off Queensland in December 1985 at about 450 m (1,476 ft), a 44.5 cm (17.5 in) male and a 43.5 cm (17 in) female. Its 31 to 34 closely packed dark bars on a creamy yellow body are unique among swellsharks. Described in 2008. |
| Pyjama shark | Poroderma africanum | Name Poroderma, Greek for hole skin, meaning not explained by its author; africanum, for Africa, where it was described. Fact A South African shark with five to seven dark stripes running the length of its body, reaching 1.1 m (3.6 ft). It gathers in crowds on chokka squid egg beds to ambush egg laying females, and when threatened it curls into a circle with its tail over its head. Least Concern. |
| Leopard catshark | Poroderma pantherinum | Name Poroderma, Greek for hole skin, meaning not explained by its author; pantherinum, Latin for leopard like, for its spots and blotches. Fact Found only off South Africa, mostly in water shallower than 20 m (66 ft), and reaching 84 cm (33 in). Its coat varies so much, from off white to jet black with every spot pattern between, that four named forms exist. It takes about 10 years to mature. Least Concern. |
| Boa catshark | Scyliorhinus boa | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; boa, for its net like markings that look like a boa constrictor's. Fact A deep water shark of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico living near the seabed at 329 to 676 m (1,080 to 2,220 ft), below the reach of most trawlers, and reaching 54 cm (21 in). Least Concern. |
| Scyliorhinus cabofriensis | Scyliorhinus cabofriensis | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; cabofriensis, for Cabo Frio, Brazil, where it was first found. Fact Described in 2016 from Cabo Frio in Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, and told apart from every other southwestern Atlantic catshark of its genus by its color pattern, clasper shape and skull. |
| Lesser spotted dogfish | Scyliorhinus canicula | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark, for its rough skin; canicula, Latin for little dog. Fact One of the most common sharks of the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, from Norway to Senegal down to 400 m (1,310 ft), reaching 1 m (3 ft 3 in). Its egg cases, about 4 cm (1.6 in) long, hang from seaweed by long tendrils and hatch after 5 to 11 months. British fish and chip shops sold it as rock salmon. |
| Yellowspotted catshark | Scyliorhinus capensis | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; capensis, for the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. Fact A gray shark sprinkled with small golden yellow spots, living off Namibia and South Africa down to about 500 m (1,600 ft) and reaching 1.22 m (4 ft). Females lay one egg at a time, and hatchlings are already about 25 cm (10 in). Near Threatened. |
| West African catshark | Scyliorhinus cervigoni | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Fernando Cervigon, the Venezuelan ichthyologist. Fact A stout shark of West Africa from Mauritania to Angola, living at 45 to 500 m (148 to 1,640 ft) and reaching 80 cm (31 in). It looks like a nursehound but has no white spots. Listed as Data Deficient. |
| Comoro catshark | Scyliorhinus comoroensis | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; comoroensis, for the Comoro Islands. Fact Known from a single specimen collected off the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean at 400 m (1,300 ft) and described in 1988. |
| Duhamel's catshark | Scyliorhinus duhamelii | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau, French naval engineer and botanist who first noted in 1777 that it differs from the small spotted catshark. Fact A Mediterranean and Adriatic bottom shark of Croatia, Greece, Tunisia and Algeria at 43 to 75 m (140 to 250 ft), reaching 44 cm (17 in) and dotted with dark spots of many sizes that gather in clusters. Long lumped with the small spotted catshark, it has not yet been assessed by the IUCN. |
| Brownspotted catshark | Scyliorhinus garmani | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Samuel Garman, the Harvard ichthyologist. Fact A rare catshark of the Indo West Pacific described in 1934 from the East Indies and also known from the Philippines. Only young sharks about 38 cm (15 in) long have been studied, so adult size is unknown. |
| Cinder cloudy catshark | Scyliorhinus hachijoensis | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; hachijoensis, for Hachijojima Island, Japan. Fact Described in 2022 after turning up as bycatch on longlines set for splendid alfonsino around Japan's Izu Islands at 100 to 650 m (328 to 2,133 ft). It reaches about 40 cm (16 in), is flecked with gray like cinders, and lays a wrinkled egg case unlike the smooth cases of its relatives. |
| Freckled catshark | Scyliorhinus haeckelii | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Ernst Haeckel, the German biologist. Fact Lives from Venezuela to Uruguay at 37 to 402 m (121 to 1,319 ft), mostly on deep reefs, and reaches 60 cm (24 in). Females lay amber egg cases about 6 cm (2.4 in) long among corals and sea fans. Listed as Data Deficient. |
| Whitesaddled catshark | Scyliorhinus hesperius | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; hesperius, Latin for western, for its western Atlantic home. Fact Lives on the upper slope off Honduras, Panama and Colombia at 274 to 457 m (900 to 1,500 ft) and reaches 47 cm (19 in). It wears seven or eight dark saddles edged with large white spots. Least Concern. |
| Blotched catshark | Scyliorhinus meadi | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Giles W. Mead, the American ichthyologist. Fact Lives among deep sea coral banks from North Carolina to Cuba at 329 to 548 m (1,079 to 1,798 ft), where its small back spots glow yellow under blue light. Every specimen ever caught has been immature, the largest 49 cm (19 in), so nobody knows how big adults get. |
| Chain catshark | Scyliorhinus retifer | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; retifer, Latin for net bearing, for its chain like pattern. Fact One of only four sharks and rays known to glow with biofluorescence, lighting up green under blue light. It lives from Massachusetts to Nicaragua at 36 to 750 m (118 to 2,461 ft), reaches 59 cm (23 in), and females can store sperm for up to 843 days. |
| Nursehound | Scyliorhinus stellaris | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; stellaris, Latin for starry, for its black and white spots. Fact The biggest catshark of European waters at up to 1.6 m (5.2 ft), hiding by day in rock holes from Norway to Senegal. Its rough skin, called rubskin, was once used to polish wood and alabaster; a pound of it was said to be worth a hundredweight of sandpaper. Listed as Vulnerable, with Tyrrhenian Sea numbers down more than 99 percent since the 1970s. |
| Cloudy catshark | Scyliorhinus torazame | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; torazame, Japanese for tiger shark, for its markings. Fact A rocky reef shark of Japan, Korea and China, from the shore down to 320 m (1,050 ft), reaching 50 cm (20 in). Its eggs take about 15 months to hatch in 11 C (52 F) water, and its skin is so rough that each denticle carries three backward pointing teeth. A common lab animal in Japan. |
| Dwarf catshark | Scyliorhinus torrei | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Carlos de la Torre, the Cuban zoologist. Fact A pale brown shark with big white spots living off southern Florida, the Bahamas and Cuba at 200 to 600 m (700 to 2,000 ft). At about 32 cm (13 in) it is one of the smallest of its genus. Least Concern. |
| Dark freckled catshark | Scyliorhinus ugoi | Name Scyliorhinus, Greek for small dog plus an old word for shark; named for Ugo de Luna Gomes, son of one of the describers. Fact Described in 2015 from northeastern and southeastern Brazil, told apart from the freckled catshark and its relatives by its darker background color, wider head and body proportions. |
Hammerhead sharks Sphyrnidae · 11 species
The head is flattened and stretched sideways into a hammer, with an eye at each end.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Winghead shark | Eusphyra blochii | Name Eusphyra, Greek eu, very, plus sphyra, hammer, for its huge hammer; blochii, honors Marcus Elieser Bloch, the physician naturalist who illustrated it in 1785. Fact Reaches 186 cm (6.1 ft) in the Indo West Pacific and carries the widest hammer of any hammerhead in proportion to its body; DNA places it as sister to all other hammerheads, and it is Critically Endangered. |
| Shovelbill shark | Sphyrna alleni | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; alleni, honors Paul G. Allen, Microsoft cofounder who funded shark research and conservation. Fact Named in 2024 from the Caribbean and southwest Atlantic as a new species, and too new to have a Red List assessment. |
| Scalloped bonnethead | Sphyrna corona | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; corona, Latin for crown, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 92 cm (36 in) in the eastern Pacific and is listed as Critically Endangered with numbers falling. |
| Carolina hammerhead | Sphyrna gilberti | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; gilberti, honors Carter R. Gilbert of the Florida Museum, who in 1967 reported an odd scalloped hammerhead that was this species. Fact Named in 2013 from the western Atlantic after decades hidden inside the scalloped hammerhead; the Red List rates it Data Deficient. |
| Scalloped hammerhead | Sphyrna lewini | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; lewini, patronym not identified, ETYFish suggests John Lewin, an Australian natural history illustrator, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 430 cm (14 ft) in coastal seas worldwide, with a rounded head notched at the center. Litters run 12 to 15 pups, and in 2014 fewer than 15 public aquariums worldwide kept it; Critically Endangered. |
| Scoophead | Sphyrna media | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; media, Latin for middle, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Reaches 150 cm (4.9 ft) in the western Atlantic and is listed as Critically Endangered with numbers falling. |
| Great hammerhead | Sphyrna mokarran | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; mokarran, from the Arabic name for the shark. Fact The biggest hammerhead, averaging 4.0 m (13 ft) and 230 kg (500 lb) with a record of 610 cm (20 ft); a Florida shark caught in 1906 weighed over 680 kg (1,500 lb). Litters hold 20 to 40 pups and mothers sometimes eat their own young; Critically Endangered. |
| Bonnethead | Sphyrna tiburo | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; tiburo, from Spanish tiburón, shark. Fact The smallest hammerhead at 1.5 m (4.9 ft) and 10.8 kg (24 lb), and the first shark shown to eat plants, with seagrass making up to half its stomach contents. In 2007 it became the first shark documented reproducing without a male, by parthenogenesis; listed as Endangered. |
| Smalleye hammerhead | Sphyrna tudes | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; tudes, Latin for hammer or mallet. Fact Reaches 150 cm (5 ft) in muddy coastal water 5 to 40 m (16 to 131 ft) deep off eastern South America from Venezuela to Uruguay. Its gold to orange color comes from pigment in its diet of shrimp and sea catfish; listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Pacific bonnethead | Sphyrna vespertina | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; vespertina, Latin for western, as the eastern Pacific counterpart of the western Atlantic bonnethead. Fact The eastern Pacific twin of the bonnethead, a reef shark ranging from southern California through the Gulf of California to Paita in northern Peru. Named in 1940 and long lumped with the bonnethead, it has not yet been assessed by the IUCN on its own. |
| Smooth hammerhead | Sphyrna zygaena | Name Sphyrna, Greek sphyra, hammer, for the head; zygaena, the ancient Greek name for hammerheads, from zygon, yoke. Fact Reaches 500 cm (16 ft) in temperate and tropical seas worldwide, with a rounded head that lacks the central notch of the scalloped hammerhead; listed as Vulnerable. |
Houndsharks Triakidae · 47 species
Smooth-hounds, topes and the leopard shark: slim sharks with oval eyes and flat crushing teeth, caught for food worldwide.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Whiskery shark | Furgaleus macki | Name Furgaleus, Latin fur, thief, plus galeus, shark, a replacement for an earlier name already in use; macki, honors George Mack, ichthyologist at the National Museum in Melbourne. Fact The one houndshark genus with barbel like nasal flaps, the whiskers of its common name; it lives in Australian waters. |
| Tope | Galeorhinus galeus | Name Galeorhinus, Greek galeos, shark, plus rhinos, hide or rasp, for rough skin; galeus, Aristotle's name for a small shark. Fact A very active shark that swims more or less without stopping and matters to fisheries in temperate seas; in Australia it is overfished and managed under a rebuilding plan. |
| Sailback houndshark | Gogolia filewoodi | Name Gogolia, for the Gogol River in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea, the type locality; filewoodi, honors Lionel Winston Filewood, an Australian biologist who studied the sharks and rays of Papua New Guinea. Fact Named by Compagno in 1973 as a new genus and species from New Guinea, the only houndshark whose first dorsal fin is longer than its tail fin. |
| Deepwater sicklefin houndshark | Hemitriakis abdita | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; abdita, Latin for hidden, for its close resemblance to H. falcata. Fact A deep water shark of the Coral Sea off Queensland and New Caledonia, with the first specimen taken at 225 m (740 ft). It reaches only 60 cm (24 in) and weighs about half a kilogram (1.1 lb). Least Concern. |
| Ocellate topeshark | Hemitriakis complicofasciata | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; complicofasciata, Latin for complicated stripes, for the intricate pattern of the young. Fact A shark of the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan described in 2004, reaching 88 cm (35 in). Its unborn young and juveniles wear a tangle of dark lines and rings that fades in adults, and litters hold 5 to 8 pups. Vulnerable. |
| Sicklefin houndshark | Hemitriakis falcata | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; falcata, Latin for sickle shaped, for the strongly curved fins of adults. Fact A small shark of the shelf off Western Australia, where the first specimen was trawled from 150 m (490 ft). It reaches 77 cm (30 in) and weighs about 1.5 kg (3.3 lb), and it bears live young fed on yolk. Least Concern. |
| Indonesian houndshark | Hemitriakis indroyonoi | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; indroyonoi, honors Indroyono Soesilo, chairman of Indonesia's Marine and Fisheries Research Agency, who backed shark research. Fact Described in 2009 from eastern Indonesia and reaching 120 cm (47 in), it bears 6 to 11 pups born at 28 to 30 cm (11 to 12 in), fed in the womb by uterine milk rather than a placenta. Endangered. |
| Japanese topeshark | Hemitriakis japanica | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; japanica, belonging to Japan, the type locality. Fact Lives off China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan at 20 to 345 m (66 to 1,130 ft) and reaches 120 cm (47 in), living up to 15 years. Litters hold 8 to 22 pups born at about 20 cm (8 in). Endangered. |
| Whitefin topeshark | Hemitriakis leucoperiptera | Name Hemitriakis, Greek for half Triakis, for its kinship with that genus; leucoperiptera, Greek for white around the fin, for its white fin edges. Fact A little known inshore shark found only in the Philippines, in water no deeper than 48 m (160 ft), reaching 96 cm (38 in). It bears litters of about 12 pups and is listed as Critically Endangered. |
| Blacktip tope | Hypogaleus hyugaensis | Name Hypogaleus, Greek hypo, under, plus galeus, shark, meaning not explained by its author; hyugaensis, for Hyuga Nada, Japan, the type locality. Fact The only member of its genus, a shelf shark of 127 cm (4.2 ft) living at 40 to 230 m (130 to 750 ft) from East Africa and the Persian Gulf to Taiwan and Japan. It eats fish and squid and carries 10 or 11 pups for about 15 months before birth. Data Deficient. |
| Longnose houndshark | Iago garricki | Name Iago, named for the villain of Shakespeare's Othello, for the trouble the genus gave scientists; garricki, honors Jack Garrick, a New Zealand specialist in the requiem sharks, where this shark was first placed. Fact A little known deep slope shark of the South China Sea, Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, Vanuatu and northern Australia at 250 to 475 m (820 to 1,560 ft), reaching 75 cm (30 in). It eats rattails, shrimp, squat lobsters and squid and bears 4 or 5 pups. Least Concern. |
| Indian houndshark | Iago gopalakrishnani | Name Iago, named for the villain of Shakespeare's Othello, for the trouble the genus gave scientists; gopalakrishnani, honors A. Gopalakrishnan, an Indian marine fish geneticist who backed shark genetics in India. Fact Named as a new species in 2025 from deep water off India at 300 to 400 m (980 to 1,310 ft), where the biggest known female measured 88 cm (35 in). It is so new that the IUCN has not yet assessed it. |
| Mangalore houndshark | Iago mangalorensis | Name Iago, named for the villain of Shakespeare's Othello, for the trouble the genus gave scientists; mangalorensis, for Mangalore, South India, the type locality. Fact A very slender bronze colored shark named in 2011, swimming above the outer shelf and upper slope from the Gulf of Aden to southwest India down to 183 m (600 ft) and reaching 58 cm (23 in). The IUCN has not yet assessed it. |
| Bigeye houndshark | Iago omanensis | Name Iago, named for the villain of Shakespeare's Othello, for the trouble the genus gave scientists; omanensis, for the Gulf of Oman, the type locality. Fact A tiny deep sea shark of the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, Pakistan and southwest India, living at 110 to 2,195 m (360 to 7,200 ft) and feeding on lanternfish and squid. Females reach 58 cm (23 in) and males only 37 cm (15 in). Least Concern. |
| White-margin fin houndshark | Mustelus albipinnis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; albipinnis, Latin for white finned, for the white edges of its fins. Fact Described in 2005 by Castro Aguirre and colleagues; it lives in Mexico's Pacific waters, where houndsharks are now catch and release under the shark ban; no species fact page reached this run. |
| Andaman smooth-hound | Mustelus andamanensis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; andamanensis, for the Andaman Sea off Thailand, its only known home. Fact Named only in 2021 from the Andaman Sea off Myanmar and Thailand, where it lives at 50 to 100 m (160 to 330 ft) and reaches 108.5 cm (43 in). Every specimen under 72 cm (28 in) examined was still immature. Vulnerable. |
| Gummy shark | Mustelus antarcticus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; antarcticus, Latin for southern, for its range around Australia. Fact Supports an important Australian fishery, and its Commonwealth stocks are rated sustainable; described in 1870 by Günther. |
| Starry smooth-hound | Mustelus asterias | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; asterias, Greek for starred, for the white spots on its back. Fact A common shark of sandy and gravelly bottoms from Britain and the North Sea to the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean, down to 350 m (1,150 ft), reaching 154 cm (5 ft). It eats crabs, hermit crabs and lobsters and bears 7 to 15 pups born at about 30 cm (12 in). Near Threatened. |
| Gray smooth-hound | Mustelus californicus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; californicus, Latin for belonging to California, where it is common. Fact Described in 1864 by Gill; it lives in Mexico's Pacific waters, where houndsharks are now catch and release under the shark ban; no species fact page reached this run. |
| Smooth dogfish | Mustelus canis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; canis, Latin for dog, since sharks were called dogs in ancient times. Fact A crab and lobster eating shark of the western Atlantic from Massachusetts and the Gulf of Mexico to Argentina, usually at 18 to 200 m (59 to 660 ft), reaching 150 cm (4.9 ft) and 12 kg (27 lb). It travels in packs, migrates along the U.S. coast with the seasons and sometimes wanders into fresh water; litters hold 4 to 20 pups. Near Threatened. |
| Sharptooth smooth-hound | Mustelus dorsalis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; dorsalis, Latin for of the back, for the rear corner of the first dorsal fin reaching back to the pelvic fins. Fact A small inshore shark of the eastern Pacific from southern Mexico to Peru at 20 to 200 m (66 to 660 ft), reaching only 64 cm (25 in). It feeds mainly on shrimp and bears litters of about 4 pups through a yolk sac placenta. Vulnerable. |
| Striped smooth-hound | Mustelus fasciatus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; fasciatus, Latin for banded, for dark bars on the body of the young. Fact A shelf shark of southern Brazil to northern Argentina, usually at 1 to 50 m (3 to 160 ft), reaching 150 cm (4.9 ft). Mothers swim to the shore to give birth, and newborns live on beaches in water only 1 to 5 m (3 to 16 ft) deep. Critically Endangered. |
| Spotless smooth-hound | Mustelus griseus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; griseus, medieval Latin for gray, for its color. Fact An inshore shark of sandy bottoms off Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and Vietnam at 5 to 300 m (16 to 980 ft), reaching 101 cm (40 in). Litters hold 5 to 16 pups after a 10 month pregnancy, and bigger mothers carry bigger litters. Endangered. |
| Brown smooth-hound | Mustelus henlei | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; henlei, honors Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle, the German anatomist who with Johannes Müller wrote the first authoritative work on sharks. Fact Described in 1863 by Gill; it lives in Mexico's Pacific waters, where houndsharks are now catch and release under the shark ban; no species fact page reached this run. |
| Smalleye smooth-hound | Mustelus higmani | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; higmani, honors James B. Higman, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who took notes on it aboard the collecting vessel. Fact A small shark of Venezuela to Brazil that reaches 77 cm (30 in) and lives from shallow brackish water down to 900 m (2,950 ft). Litters hold 1 to 7 pups, and catches are mostly of one sex, so males and females live apart. Endangered. |
| Spotted estuary smooth-hound | Mustelus lenticulatus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; lenticulatus, Latin for freckled, for white spots on the upper sides. Fact A New Zealand shark of crab eating habits that reaches 151 cm (5 ft) and lives from the shore down to 860 m (2,820 ft). It bears 2 to 37 pups, schools by size and sex, and one tagged female traveled at least 1,160 km (720 mi). Least Concern. |
| Sicklefin smooth-hound | Mustelus lunulatus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; lunulatus, Latin for somewhat moon shaped, for its concave fin edges. Fact Described in 1882 by Jordan and Gilbert; it lives in Mexico's Pacific waters, where houndsharks are now catch and release under the shark ban; no species fact page reached this run. |
| Starspotted smooth-hound | Mustelus manazo | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; manazo, the Japanese name for the shark. Fact Lives on mud and sand bottoms from Siberia and Japan south to Vietnam, down to 360 m (1,180 ft), and reaches 220 cm (7.2 ft). Pregnancy lasts about 10 months and litters run from 1 to 22 pups born in spring. Endangered. |
| Speckled smooth-hound | Mustelus mento | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; mento, from Latin mentum, chin, with Cope noting a long muzzle. Fact Lives from Peru to southern Chile and out to the Galapagos and Juan Fernandez islands at 16 to 50 m (52 to 160 ft), reaching 141 cm (4.6 ft). Adults wear small white spots while the young wear dark bars, and litters hold about 7 pups. Heavy fishing has made it Critically Endangered. |
| Dwarf smooth-hound | Mustelus minicanis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; minicanis, Latin for least dog, a dwarf version of M. canis. Fact Known only from the coast between Cape La Vela in Colombia and Rio Caribe in Venezuela at 71 to 183 m (230 to 600 ft), and the biggest known female measured 57 cm (23 in). Described in 1997, it is listed as Endangered. |
| Arabian smooth-hound | Mustelus mosis | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; mosis, the Latin spelling of Moses, meaning not explained by its author. Fact Lives in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf down to 400 m (1,310 ft), sometimes over coral reefs, and reaches 150 cm (4.9 ft). Adults grow a hard bone like lump in the snout, and litters hold 6 to 10 pups born at 26 to 28 cm (10 to 11 in). Near Threatened. |
| Smooth-hound | Mustelus mustelus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; mustelus repeats it. Fact Reaches 200 cm (6.6 ft) in the eastern Atlantic from Britain through the Mediterranean to South Africa, usually at 5 to 50 m (16 to 160 ft). It bears 4 to 17 live pups fed through a yolk sac placenta, lives 24 years and is listed as Endangered. |
| Narrowfin smooth-hound | Mustelus norrisi | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; norrisi, honors Harry Waldo Norris, a Grinnell College zoologist who studied dogfish cranial nerves. Fact Lives over mud and sand from Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Venezuela and southern Brazil, usually at 3 to 40 m (10 to 130 ft), and reaches 110 cm (43 in). It eats crabs, shrimp and fish and bears 7 to 14 pups through a yolk sac placenta. Near Threatened. |
| Whitespotted smooth-hound | Mustelus palumbes | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; palumbes, Latin for wood pigeon, for its dove gray color. Fact Lives over sand and gravel from the shore to 443 m (1,450 ft) between Namibia and the Natal coast of South Africa, reaching 120 cm (47 in). It bears 3 to 8 pups, eats crabs, octopus and fish scraps, and a local fishery turns it into jerky. Least Concern. |
| Blackspotted smooth-hound | Mustelus punctulatus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; punctulatus, Latin for tiny spots, often present on the body. Fact An inshore bottom shark of the Mediterranean and the nearby Atlantic coast south to Western Sahara, reaching 190 cm (6.2 ft) and feeding on crustaceans. It is often confused with the common smooth hound and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Australian grey smooth-hound | Mustelus ravidus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; ravidus, Latin for grayish, for its pale gray back. Fact A small gray shark of the outer shelf off Western Australia at 106 to 300 m (350 to 980 ft), reaching 79 cm (31 in), with a black tip on the end of its tail fin. Least Concern. |
| Narrownose smooth-hound | Mustelus schmitti | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; schmitti, honors Waldo L. Schmitt, curator of marine invertebrates at the U.S. National Museum, who collected the holotype. Fact A crab eating shelf shark of southern Brazil to northern Argentina at 60 to 195 m (200 to 640 ft), reaching 92 cm (36 in) and bearing 2 to 7 pups. Heavy fishing has pushed it to Critically Endangered. |
| Gulf smooth-hound | Mustelus sinusmexicanus | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; sinusmexicanus, Latin for belonging to a gulf, the Gulf of Mexico. Fact Found only in the Gulf of Mexico from Panama City, Florida to the Bay of Campeche, usually at 42 to 91 m (140 to 300 ft). Females reach 140 cm (4.6 ft), males only 83 cm (33 in), and it was not named as a species until 1997. Least Concern. |
| Western spotted smooth-hound | Mustelus stevensi | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; stevensi, honors John Stevens, a longtime CSIRO shark researcher in Australia. Fact Lives from northwest Australia to southern Indonesia and the Andaman Sea at 69 to 735 m (230 to 2,410 ft) and reaches 128 cm (50 in), with small white spots on its back and dark tipped dorsal fins. It bears 5 to 17 pups. Least Concern. |
| Humpback smooth-hound | Mustelus whitneyi | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; whitneyi, honors Richard R. Whitney, an American fisheries biologist who guided the author's shark studies. Fact An offshore shark of rocky bottoms around islands from Ecuador to southern Chile, usually at 70 to 100 m (230 to 330 ft), reaching 87 cm (34 in). It eats crabs, mantis shrimp and small fish and bears 5 to 10 pups. Critically Endangered. |
| Whitefin smooth-hound | Mustelus widodoi | Name Mustelus, Latin mustela, weasel, an old name for sharks; widodoi, honors Johannes Widodo of the Research Institute of Marine Fisheries in Jakarta, whose fishery surveys gave baseline data on Indonesian sharks. Fact Known from Bali in Indonesia at 60 to 120 m (200 to 390 ft), where the biggest known female measured 108.5 cm (43 in). It is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Flapnose houndshark | Scylliogaleus quecketti | Name Scylliogaleus, Scyllium plus galeus, a shark with nostrils like Scyllium, meaning not explained by its author; quecketti, honors John Frederick Whitlie Quekett, curator of the Durban Museum, who supplied the holotype. Fact Lives only off the Natal and northeastern Cape coasts of South Africa, from the surf line to just offshore, and reaches 102 cm (40 in). It eats crustaceans, including lobsters, and bears 2 to 4 pups after a 9 to 10 month pregnancy. Vulnerable. |
| Sharpfin houndshark | Triakis acutipinna | Name Triakis, Greek for three pointed, for teeth with one big cusp and two small cusplets; acutipinna, Latin for sharp fin, for its sharp tipped fins. Fact Known from only two specimens, both from the coast of Ecuador, the larger a female of 102 cm (40 in). It gives birth to live young nourished by yolk and is listed as Endangered. |
| Spotted houndshark | Triakis maculata | Name Triakis, Greek for three pointed, for teeth with one big cusp and two small cusplets; maculata, Latin for spotted, for its many small black spots, though some sharks have none. Fact Reaches 180 cm (5.9 ft) and by FishBase about 240 cm (7.9 ft) on the inshore shelf of the eastern Pacific around the Galapagos and from Peru to northern Chile. Litters average about 14 pups born at 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in), and FishBase rates its fishing vulnerability very high at 90 of 100. |
| Sharptooth houndshark | Triakis megalopterus | Name Triakis, Greek for three pointed, for teeth with one big cusp and two small cusplets; megalopterus, Greek for large finned, for its broad fins. Fact A stout black spotted shark of southern African surf zones from Angola to the Eastern Cape, mostly in water under 10 m (33 ft) deep, reaching 1.7 m (5.6 ft) and 40 kg (88 lb). Pregnancy lasts about 20 months, and litters of 6 to 12 pups arrive only every two or three years. Least Concern. |
| Banded houndshark | Triakis scyllium | Name Triakis, Greek for three pointed, for teeth with one big cusp and two small cusplets; scyllium, Latinized Greek for a small dog or whelp, an old name for small sharks. Fact Lives only in the northwest Pacific; old Australian records of it were misidentifications of another shark. Described in 1839 by Müller and Henle; no species fact page reached this run. |
| Leopard shark | Triakis semifasciata | Name Triakis, Greek for three pointed, for teeth with one big cusp and two small cusplets; semifasciata, Latin for half banded, for black saddles on the upper half of the body. Fact A common sight in large public aquariums and a resident of the Pacific coast of Mexico; described in 1855 by Girard; no species fact page reached this run. |
Dogfish sharks Squaliformes · 144 species
No anal fin, two dorsal fins often with a spine in front, a short snout. Most of the deep-sea and glowing sharks.
Gulper sharks Centrophoridae · 17 species
Deep-water dogfish with big green eyes and oily livers, slow to breed and easily overfished.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dwarf gulper shark | Centrophorus atromarginatus | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; atromarginatus, Latin for blackish bordered, for the black edges on most of its fins. Fact A slim dogfish of the Indian and western Pacific oceans from the Gulf of Aden to Japan, Taiwan and Papua New Guinea, it reaches 1.5 m (5 ft) and feeds below 200 m (656 ft). Pups are born at 30 to 42 cm (12 to 17 in). |
| Gulper shark | Centrophorus granulosus | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; granulosus, Latin for full of grains, for its grainy brown skin. Fact Lives at 100 to 1,490 m (330 to 4,890 ft) in warm and temperate seas worldwide and has the lowest reproduction rate of any shark or ray: a female matures at 12 to 16 years, carries one pup for about two years, and bears only 2 to 10 pups in a life of 54 to 70 years. It is hunted for the squalene in its liver oil and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Dumb gulper shark | Centrophorus harrissoni | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; harrissoni honors Charles Turnbull Harrisson, a biologist who collected fishes on the ship Endeavour off Australia and vanished with it in December 1914. Fact Grows to 110 cm (43 in) off eastern Australia, where its big green eyes suit the dim water at 250 to 385 m (820 to 1,260 ft). Its numbers have fallen by as much as 99% in some areas since the 1970s. |
| Blackfin gulper shark | Centrophorus isodon | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; isodon, Greek for equal tooth, for teeth of similar shape in both jaws. Fact A northwest Pacific gulper that reaches 108 cm (43 in) and lives down to 770 m (2,530 ft) off Hong Kong and the Paracel Islands. It gives birth to just two pups at a time, its liver oil is very highly valued, and it is listed as Endangered. |
| African gulper shark | Centrophorus lesliei | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; lesliei honors Robin Leslie of South Africa's fisheries department for his work on southern African sharks and rays. Fact Described in 2017, it stays under 1 m long (largest 99 cm, 39 in) and has a very long first dorsal fin. It lives at 340 to 610 m (1,120 to 2,000 ft) off Mozambique, Madagascar and West Africa and was listed as Endangered in 2024. |
| Longfin gulper shark | Centrophorus longipinnis | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; longipinnis, Latin for long fin, for its long based first dorsal fin. Fact Described in 2017 from Taiwan, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, it reaches 93 cm (37 in) and lives at 330 to 460 m (1,080 to 1,510 ft). One 89 cm (35 in) female carried a single late term pup already 34.6 cm (13.6 in) long. It is listed as Endangered. |
| Lowfin gulper shark | Centrophorus lusitanicus | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; lusitanicus is not listed on ETYFish and its page does not explain the name. Fact Reaches 1.6 m (5.2 ft) and lives at 300 to 1,400 m (980 to 4,590 ft) off Portugal, West Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar and Taiwan. Its first dorsal fin is much longer than the second, it bears up to six pups, and it eats other sharks, bony fish, crabs and lobsters. Listed as Vulnerable. |
| Smallfin gulper shark | Centrophorus moluccensis | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; moluccensis, for the Moluccas of Indonesia, where the first specimen was taken. Fact Reaches 98 cm (39 in) and lives near the bottom at 130 to 820 m (430 to 2,690 ft) from South Africa to Japan and Australia. It usually bears two pups per litter and eats mainly bony fish but also other sharks, squid and crabs. |
| Seychelles gulper shark | Centrophorus seychellorum | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; seychellorum, a plural honoring the friendly people of the Seychelles. Fact Described in 2003 and known only from the waters around Alphonse Island in the Seychelles. It is plain grey with blackish tips and trailing edges on its dorsal fins. |
| Leafscale gulper shark | Centrophorus squamosus | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; squamosus, Latin for full of scales, for its large leaf shaped skin scales. Fact Reaches 158 cm (5 ft 2 in) and ranges from Iceland to South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand at 230 to 2,360 m (750 to 7,740 ft), usually below 1,000 m (3,300 ft), one of the deepest living gulper sharks. |
| Mosaic gulper shark | Centrophorus tessellatus | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; tessellatus, Latin for inlaid with small squares, probably for its blocky, widely spaced skin denticles. Fact Known from Honshu, Japan and the Hawaiian Islands at 260 to 728 m (850 to 2,390 ft). It reaches 89 cm (35 in), bears litters of only 1 or 2 pups, and is listed as Endangered. |
| Little gulper shark | Centrophorus uyato | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; uyato, from a Mediterranean folk name for dogfish sharks. Fact Lives near the seabed at 50 to 1,400 m (160 to 4,590 ft) in the Gulf of Mexico, from Spain to South Africa, in the Mediterranean, and off Mozambique and India. Its back rises in a slight hump just in front of the first dorsal fin. |
| Western gulper shark | Centrophorus westraliensis | Name Centrophorus, Greek for spine bearer, for the grooved spines on its dorsal fins; westraliensis, for Western Australia, the only place it is known from. Fact Described in 2008 in a single volume that named 37 new Australian sharks and rays at once. It was long mistaken for the dumb gulper shark until body proportions set the two apart, and it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Birdbeak dogfish | Deania calceus | Name Deania honors Bashford Dean, an American shark researcher at the American Museum of Natural History; calceus, Latin for shoe, from a Portuguese name for these sharks, perhaps for a gray white body and long snout that look like a velvet slipper. Fact Lives at 73 to 1,450 m (240 to 4,760 ft) from Iceland to South Africa and off Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Chile. Its very long narrow snout and pitchfork shaped skin denticles stand out, and litters reach 12 pups. |
| Rough longnose dogfish | Deania hystricosa | Name Deania honors Bashford Dean, an American shark researcher at the American Museum of Natural History; hystricosa is not listed on ETYFish and its page does not explain the name. Fact Rarely seen, it reaches 109 cm (43 in) and lives at 600 to 1,000 m (1,970 to 3,280 ft) off Madeira and southern Japan. Samuel Garman described it in 1906, and females carry about 12 pups. |
| Arrowhead dogfish | Deania profundorum | Name Deania honors Bashford Dean, an American shark researcher at the American Museum of Natural History; profundorum, Latin for of the depths, because the first specimens came from 717 to 1,785 m. Fact The smallest Deania at 76 cm (30 in), it lives at 300 to 1,785 m (980 to 5,860 ft) off the Philippines, the Carolinas, West Africa and South Africa and bears five to seven pups. |
| Longsnout dogfish | Deania quadrispinosa | Name Deania honors Bashford Dean, an American shark researcher at the American Museum of Natural History; quadrispinosa, Latin for four thorned, for its four pointed skin denticles. Fact A dark brown shark with an extremely long, angular snout, it reaches 114 cm (45 in) and lives at 150 to 732 m (490 to 2,400 ft) from Namibia to Mozambique and off southern Australia and New Zealand. |
Kitefin sharks Dalatiidae · 10 species
Small to medium deep-sea sharks with a cigar-shaped body; the cookiecutter and the pocket sharks are here, and most glow.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kitefin shark | Dalatias licha | Name Dalatias, meaning not explained by its author; licha, from La Liche, an old French name for this shark. Fact The largest shark known to glow, at 1.6 m (5.2 ft) and possibly 1.8 m (5.9 ft), with belly photophores that shine downward. It has been caught from the surface to 1,800 m (5,900 ft), bites chunks out of whales and bigger sharks, and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Taillight shark | Euprotomicroides zantedeschia | Name Euprotomicroides, shaped like Euprotomicrus; zantedeschia, for the South African arum lily, whose name the Cape Town trawler Arum carried when it caught the first specimen. Fact Only four specimens are known, from off South Africa (the first in 1963), Uruguay and Chile, the largest 51.5 cm (20.3 in). A pouch on its belly is lined with glowing tissue and in life gives off a glowing blue fluid whose purpose is unknown. |
| Pygmy shark | Euprotomicrus bispinatus | Name Euprotomicrus, Greek for very small first, for its tiny first dorsal fin; bispinatus, Latin for twice thorned, for spines on the male claspers. Fact The second smallest shark, with females about 25 cm (10 in) and a record of 30.5 cm (12 in). Its belly glows, and it swims near the surface at night then sinks below 400 m (1,310 ft) by day, as deep as 1,800 m (5,900 ft). Pups are 6 to 10 cm (2.4 to 3.9 in) at birth. |
| Longnose pygmy shark | Heteroscymnoides marleyi | Name Heteroscymnoides, shaped like Heteroscymnus, an old name for sleeper sharks; marleyi honors Harold Walter Bell Marley, a Natal fisheries officer who discovered it. Fact Only six specimens are known to science, the largest 37 cm (15 in). It roams cold southern open ocean from the surface to 502 m (1,647 ft) over water 830 to 4,000 m deep, has a long bulbous snout, and its underside is covered with tiny light organs. |
| Cookiecutter shark | Isistius brasiliensis | Name Isistius, probably Greek for equal sail, for its two matching dorsal fins set far back; brasiliensis, for the coast of Brazil, where the first was caught. Fact Only 56 cm (22 in) long, it gouges round plugs 5 cm (2 in) wide and 7 cm (2.8 in) deep out of whales and tuna, and in the 1980s damaged about 30 US Navy submarines. Its green glow is the strongest of any shark and lasts about three hours after death, and it rises each night from as deep as 3.7 km (2.3 mi). |
| Largetooth cookiecutter shark | Isistius plutodus | Name Isistius, probably Greek for equal sail, for its two matching dorsal fins set far back; plutodus, Greek for wealth of teeth, for its bigger lower teeth. Fact Only ten specimens are known, from scattered spots off Alabama, Brazil, the Azores, Western Sahara, Okinawa and New South Wales. At 42 cm (17 in) it has the largest teeth for its body size of any living shark, and its bites on dolphins off Brazil have led to strandings. |
| American pocket shark | Mollisquama mississippiensis | Name Mollisquama, Latin for soft scale, for soft scales found in no other shark; mississippiensis, for the Mississippi basin behind its Gulf of Mexico home. Fact Known from one 14 cm (5.5 in) shark netted in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico by Tulane scientists studying sperm whales and recognized as a pocket shark in 2013. Two pockets near its gills release a glowing fluid, and light organs dot its body. |
| Pocket shark | Mollisquama parini | Name Mollisquama, Latin for soft scale, for soft scales found in no other shark; parini honors Nikolai Parin, a Russian expert on the Nazca Ridge, where the first was caught. Fact Known from a single 40 cm (16 in) female taken in 1979 at 330 m (1,080 ft) on the Nazca Ridge off Chile. A pocket gland 13 mm (0.5 in) long sits behind each pectoral fin, and nobody knows what it does, though a glowing fluid or a scent are the guesses. |
| Smalleye pygmy shark | Squaliolus aliae | Name Squaliolus, little Squalus (Latin for a fish unfit to eat), for its small size; aliae honors Huang A li, wife of the describer Teng. Fact Just 22 cm (8.7 in) long, it lives in the western Pacific off Japan, the Philippines and Australia at 150 to 2,000 m (490 to 6,560 ft), rising at night and sinking by day. Its belly glows, and it carries a spine on the first dorsal fin but not the second, a trait shared only with its sister species. |
| Spined pygmy shark | Squaliolus laticaudus | Name Squaliolus, little Squalus (Latin for a fish unfit to eat), for its small size; laticaudus, Latin for broad tail. Fact One of the smallest sharks in the world, males 22 cm (8.7 in) and females 28 cm (11 in), found in all oceans. It spends the day near 500 m (1,640 ft) and rises to 200 m (660 ft) at night chasing prey, with a glowing belly and a first dorsal spine that shows in males but is covered by skin in females. |
Lanternsharks Etmopteridae · 54 species
The biggest dogfish family and the most numerous glowing sharks: small deep-sea sharks with light organs along the belly.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hooktooth dogfish | Aculeola nigra | Name Aculeola, Latin for little spur, for the spines on both dorsal fins; nigra, Latin for black, for its plain black color in preservative. Fact A black shark with a blunt flattened snout and very large eyes, reaching 60 cm (24 in) at 110 to 560 m (360 to 1,840 ft) along the South American coast from Peru to central Chile. |
| Highfin dogfish | Centroscyllium excelsum | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; excelsum, Latin for high, for its very tall first dorsal fin. Fact Reaches 63 cm (25 in) and lives at 800 to 1,000 m (2,620 to 3,280 ft) along the Emperor Seamount chain in the northwest Pacific. Listed as Near Threatened. |
| Black dogfish | Centroscyllium fabricii | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; fabricii honors Otto Fabricius, a Danish naturalist and missionary who first studied Greenland's fishes. Fact The largest lanternshark, reaching 1.1 m (3.6 ft), and a common one, found from Greenland to Virginia and West Africa at 180 to 2,250 m (590 to 7,380 ft). Tiny glowing dots are scattered over its skin in no set pattern, it gathers in schools, and litters run from 4 to 40 pups. |
| Granular dogfish | Centroscyllium granulatum | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; granulatum, Neo Latin for grainy, for skin coarser than the black dogfish. Fact Found only around the Falkland Islands, where one was caught at about 450 m (1,480 ft). It reaches just 28 cm (11 in), almost nothing is known about it, and it is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Bareskin dogfish | Centroscyllium kamoharai | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; kamoharai honors Toshiji Kamohara, a Kochi University fish scientist, for his generosity to other researchers. Fact A 40 cm (16 in) deepwater shark from southern Japan to Australia and New Zealand whose skin denticles are so sparse and far apart that it looks bare. It has fewer light organs than other lanternsharks and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Combtooth dogfish | Centroscyllium nigrum | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; nigrum, Latin for black, for its deep black color. Fact Reaches 50 cm (20 in) and lives near the bottom at 400 to 1,145 m (1,310 to 3,760 ft) in the eastern Pacific and around Hawaii. Its teeth are shaped like combs, and a faint glowing band along its side is thought to draw in prey. |
| Ornate dogfish | Centroscyllium ornatum | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; ornatum, Latin for adorned, for white spots on the head and pale fin tips. Fact An all blackish shark about 50 cm (20 in) long with hooked skin denticles, living at 520 to 1,260 m (1,710 to 4,130 ft) on the slopes of the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Whitefin dogfish | Centroscyllium ritteri | Name Centroscyllium, Greek for prickle plus a Latinized word for small shark, for its dorsal spines; ritteri honors William Emerson Ritter of the University of California for his work on sea squirts and acorn worms. Fact Reaches 43 cm (17 in) and lives at 320 to 1,100 m (1,050 to 3,610 ft) off southeastern Japan. It is the only Centroscyllium with sharp black patches under its head and belly, which are dense clusters of light organs, and it even has light organs on the undersides of its upper eyelids. |
| Whitecheek lanternshark | Etmopterus alphus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; alphus, Greek for a skin disease with dull white patches, for the white spot on its cheeks. Fact Described in 2016 by Ebert, Straube, Leslie and Weigmann from the western Indian Ocean, where it lives. The white patch on each cheek that gives it its name sets it apart from its relatives. |
| Ninja lanternshark | Etmopterus benchleyi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; benchleyi is not listed on ETYFish, and Wikipedia says it honors Peter Benchley, author of Jaws. Fact Described from eight specimens taken off the Pacific coast of Central America at 836 to 1,443 m (2,743 to 4,734 ft). It is jet black with white around the mouth and eyes, glows from its belly, reaches 51.5 cm (20.3 in), and got its common name when describer Victoria Vasquez's young cousins argued that ninjas are awesome. |
| Blurred smooth lanternshark | Etmopterus bigelowi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; bigelowi honors Henry B. Bigelow of Woods Hole, who first described this shark in 1955 under another name. Fact Reaches 67 cm (26 in) or more and lives worldwide on slopes, ridges and seamounts from 110 m (360 ft) to over 1 km (0.62 mi) down. Its flat topped denticles give it a smooth look, it glows, and pups are born at 16 cm (6.3 in). Listed as Least Concern. |
| Shorttail lanternshark | Etmopterus brachyurus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; brachyurus, Greek for short tail, shorter than the blackbelly lanternshark's. Fact Reaches 50 cm (20 in) and lives at 450 to 900 m (1,480 to 2,950 ft) in the western Pacific, where its eggs hatch inside the mother. |
| Barrie's lanternshark | Etmopterus brosei | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; brosei honors Barrie Rose, known as Brose, a Cape Town birder and guide who died after falling from sea cliffs while fishing. Fact Described in 2021 from seamounts and slopes off South Africa, Mozambique and the Madagascar Ridge at about 480 to 1,200 m (1,570 to 3,940 ft). It had been mistaken for the sculpted lanternshark, and most of its population lives deeper than fishing nets reach. |
| Lined lanternshark | Etmopterus bullisi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; bullisi honors Harvey R. Bullis Jr., a marine biologist who probably supplied the first specimens. Fact No adult has ever been measured; the known young are over 26 cm (10 in). It lives down to 850 m (2,790 ft) from North Carolina to Florida and Honduras and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Broadsnout lanternshark | Etmopterus burgessi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; burgessi is not listed on ETYFish, and Wikipedia says it honors George H. Burgess of the Florida Museum of Natural History for his work on lanternshark classification. Fact Described in 2006 and found only around Taiwan. It is listed as Least Concern. |
| Cylindrical lanternshark | Etmopterus carteri | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; carteri honors Carter Gilbert of the Florida Museum of Natural History for his 1967 study of hammerhead sharks. Fact Only 21 cm (8.3 in) long, it lives at 285 to 355 m (935 to 1,165 ft) off the Caribbean coast of Colombia and bears 3 to 20 pups. |
| Tailspot lanternshark | Etmopterus caudistigmus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; caudistigmus, Latin tail plus Greek spot, for the oval marks on its tail fin. Fact Reaches 31 cm (12 in) and lives at 640 to 800 m (2,100 to 2,620 ft) around New Caledonia. |
| Brown lanternshark | Etmopterus compagnoi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; compagnoi honors Leonard Compagno for his research on South African sharks. Fact Lives at 479 to 923 m (1,570 to 3,030 ft) off South Africa's Cape and Natal coasts. Some scientists think it is the same species as the brown lanternshark. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Combtoothed lanternshark | Etmopterus decacuspidatus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; decacuspidatus, Latin and Greek for ten pointed, for the 4 or 5 pairs of little points on each upper tooth. Fact Known from a single 29 cm (11 in) specimen taken at 510 to 690 m (1,670 to 2,260 ft) in the South China Sea between Vietnam and Hainan Island. |
| Pink lanternshark | Etmopterus dianthus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; dianthus, for the carnation genus Dianthus, the pinks, because its upper body is pink in life. Fact Reaches 41 cm (16 in) and lives at 108 to 880 m (354 to 2,890 ft) around Australia and New Caledonia, where fresh specimens show a pink back. |
| Lined lanternshark | Etmopterus dislineatus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; dislineatus, Latin for broken lines, for the dark dash and dot lines along its body. Fact Reaches 45 cm (18 in) and lives at 590 to 800 m (1,940 to 2,620 ft) in the central Coral Sea. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Blackmouth lanternshark | Etmopterus evansi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; evansi honors David Evans, an Australian fishery scientist who donated specimens from deepwater trawlers. Fact Reaches 32 cm (12.6 in) and lives at 430 to 550 m (1,410 to 1,800 ft) off northwest Australia, in the Arafura Sea and off Papua New Guinea. A light gray back and much darker belly are split by fine black lines. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Pygmy lanternshark | Etmopterus fusus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; fusus, Latin for spindle, for its torpedo shaped body. Fact Reaches 26 cm (10 in) and lives at 430 to 550 m (1,410 to 1,800 ft) off northern Western Australia and possibly Java. |
| Broadbanded lanternshark | Etmopterus gracilispinis | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; gracilispinis, Latin for slender spines, for its thin dorsal spines and skin prickles. Fact Reaches 35 cm (14 in) and lives at 70 to 1,000 m (230 to 3,280 ft) in the western and southeast Atlantic between 40°N and 45°S. |
| Southern lanternshark | Etmopterus granulosus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; granulosus, Latin for full of grains, for its rough cone shaped denticles. Fact Reaches 60 cm (24 in) and glows at 220 to 1,460 m (720 to 4,790 ft) in the southeast Pacific and around New Zealand. Litters hold 10 to 13 pups born at about 18 cm (7 in). |
| Caribbean lanternshark | Etmopterus hillianus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; hillianus honors Richard Hill, a Jamaican magistrate and amateur naturalist who wrote about sharks. Fact Reaches 50 cm (20 in) and lives at 180 to 720 m (590 to 2,360 ft) in the Atlantic, where its eggs hatch inside the mother. |
| Shortfin smooth lanternshark | Etmopterus joungi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; joungi honors Shoou Jeng Joung of National Taiwan Ocean University for his shark research in Taiwan. Fact Described in 2011 by Knuckey, Ebert and Burgess from off northeastern Taiwan, where it lives at 430 to 550 m (1,410 to 1,800 ft). |
| Laila's lanternshark | Etmopterus lailae | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; lailae honors Laila Mostello Wetherbee, daughter of coauthor Brad Wetherbee. Fact Described in 2017 from the Koko and South Kanmu seamounts in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands at 314 to 384 m (1,030 to 1,260 ft). Its skin denticles sit in straight rows, a trait it shares with the blackbelly lanternshark. |
| Li's lanternshark | Etmopterus lii | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; lii honors Yong Tai Li, captain of the Xin Yong Tai, who helped obtain the first specimens from the South China Sea. Fact A lanternshark of the South China Sea described in 2024 from specimens landed by the fishing boat Xin Yong Tai, whose captain the shark is named for. Like other lanternsharks it carries light organs along its belly. |
| Smalleye lanternshark | Etmopterus litvinovi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; litvinovi honors Fedor Litvinov, a Russian fish scientist who helped collect the first specimen. Fact Reaches 61 cm (24 in) and lives at 630 to 1,100 m (2,070 to 3,610 ft), found only on the Nazca and Sala y Gomez ridges off Peru and Chile. |
| Blackbelly lanternshark | Etmopterus lucifer | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; lucifer, Latin for light bearer, for the light organs on its belly. Fact Reaches 47 cm (18.5 in) and lives at 150 to 1,250 m (490 to 4,100 ft) in warm and temperate seas worldwide. Hormones run its glow: melatonin switches the light on and other hormones dim it, and researchers think the light markings on its flanks let these sharks signal each other. |
| Marsha's lanternshark | Etmopterus marshae | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; marshae honors Marsha Englebrecht, an aquarium curator, for her work keeping sharks and rays. Fact Described in 2018 and tiny, with males 23.4 cm (9.2 in) and females 19.2 cm (7.6 in). It lives over sand at 322 to 337 m (1,056 to 1,106 ft) near the Batanes islands between Taiwan and the Philippines, whitish and purplish with banded markings. |
| Moller's lanternshark | Etmopterus molleri | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; molleri honors Knud Moller, the trawler captain who collected the first specimen. Fact Reaches 46 cm (18 in) and lives at 250 to 860 m (820 to 2,820 ft). Its blue light peaks near 476 nm, the same color as the faint daylight at its depth, and it makes the light itself with luciferase and coelenterazine rather than with glowing bacteria. |
| Etmopterus parini | Etmopterus parini | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; parini honors Nikolai Parin, a Russian fish scientist who helped describe the smalleye lanternshark. Fact A lanternshark of the northwest Pacific described in 2018 by Russian scientists Dolganov and Balanov and named for the fish scientist Nikolai Parin. It has no common English name. |
| Dwarf lanternshark | Etmopterus perryi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; perryi honors Perry W. Gilbert, director of Mote Marine Laboratory, for his research on shark reproduction. Fact The smallest shark in the world at about 20 cm (8 in), with the largest known 21.2 cm (8.3 in). It is known only from a small patch of the southern Caribbean off Colombia and Venezuela at 283 to 439 m (928 to 1,440 ft), glows from its belly, and bears 2 or 3 pups just 5.5 to 6 cm (2.2 to 2.4 in) long. |
| African lanternshark | Etmopterus polli | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; polli honors Max Poll, a Belgian fish scientist who discovered it and sent specimens to Harvard. Fact Reaches 30 cm (12 in) and lives at 300 to 1,000 m (980 to 3,280 ft) off West Africa. Its glowing underside draws in fish, crustaceans and squid, and it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Great lanternshark | Etmopterus princeps | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; princeps, Latin for chief, probably because it is larger than the velvet belly. Fact Reaches 75 cm (30 in) and lives deep, at 570 to 2,200 m (1,870 to 7,200 ft), on both sides of the North Atlantic. It is plain black, and the early belief that it glows has since been challenged. |
| False lanternshark | Etmopterus pseudosqualiolus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; pseudosqualiolus, Greek for false plus Squaliolus, because it looks like that pygmy shark genus. Fact Reaches 45.3 cm (17.8 in) and lives at 668 to 1,170 m (2,190 to 3,840 ft) on the Norfolk and Lord Howe ridges off New Caledonia, where its eggs hatch inside the mother. |
| Smooth lanternshark | Etmopterus pusillus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; pusillus, Latin for very small, after Lowe's 28 to 30 cm specimens. Fact Reaches 50 cm (20 in) and lives in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, usually at 274 to 1,000 m (899 to 3,281 ft) and possibly to 1,998 m (6,555 ft). It has been seen swimming over hydrothermal vent fields, and females bear about 10 young at a time. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Densescale lanternshark | Etmopterus pycnolepis | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; pycnolepis, Greek for dense scales, for the crowded rows of denticles on its head, trunk and tail. Fact Described in 1990 by Kotlyar and found in the southeast Pacific off Peru and Chile, where its skin is packed with dense rows of denticles. |
| West Indian lanternshark | Etmopterus robinsi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; robinsi honors C. Richard Robins of the University of Miami for his fish classification work. Fact Reaches 31 cm (12 in) and lives at 400 to 800 m (1,300 to 2,600 ft) in the western central Atlantic, where its eggs hatch inside the mother. |
| Papuan lanternshark | Etmopterus samadiae | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; samadiae honors Sarah Samadi, a Paris museum biologist who led expeditions to Papua New Guinea. Fact Described in 2017 from Papua New Guinea, where it lives at 340 to 785 m (1,115 to 2,575 ft). Females reach 28 cm (11 in), its upper teeth have several points while the lower ones have one, and a long dash shaped marking runs along its tail base. |
| Fringefin lanternshark | Etmopterus schultzi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; schultzi probably honors Leonard P. Schultz of the US National Museum, though its authors did not say. Fact Reaches 30 cm (12 in) and lives at 220 to 915 m (720 to 3,000 ft) in the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida. Its fins look fringed where bare fin fibers show through, it glows from its belly, and the IUCN has never evaluated it. |
| Sculpted lanternshark | Etmopterus sculptus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; sculptus, Latin for carved, for the sculpted look of its rows of denticles. Fact Described in 2011, it is moderately large for its genus and lives from Namibia to southern Mozambique and along the Madagascar Ridge. |
| Thorny lanternshark | Etmopterus sentosus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; sentosus, Latin for thorny, for two rows of enlarged hooked denticles on its flanks. Fact Reaches 27 cm (11 in) and lives at 200 to 500 m (660 to 1,640 ft) in the western Indian Ocean, with two rows of hooked thorns running along each flank. |
| Rasptooth dogfish | Etmopterus sheikoi | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; sheikoi honors Boris Sheiko, a St. Petersburg zoologist with Pacific and Bering Sea expedition experience. Fact Known from the Kyushu Palau Ridge in the northwest Pacific at 360 m (1,180 ft). Its full size is unknown, and it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Velvet belly lanternshark | Etmopterus spinax | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; spinax, Neo Latin for a spiny animal, for its dorsal spines. Fact Reaches 60 cm (24 in), though few pass 45 cm (18 in), and lives at 20 to 2,490 m (66 to 8,169 ft) from Iceland to South Africa and across the Mediterranean. Its blue green light can be seen 3 to 4 m (10 to 13 ft) away, about 80% of its belly already glows at birth, and it lives up to 22 years. |
| Splendid lanternshark | Etmopterus splendidus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; splendidus, Latin for bright or shining, probably for its purplish black back in life. Fact Reaches 30 cm (12 in) and lives at 120 to 370 m (390 to 1,210 ft) off Japan and Taiwan. It glows around its dorsal spines as a warning sign even though it has no venom, and it keeps a steady glow and changes depth to tune its camouflage. |
| Bristled lanternshark | Etmopterus unicolor | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; unicolor, Latin for one color, for its even coloring top and bottom. Fact Females reach 75 cm (30 in), and it lives at 402 to 1,380 m (1,319 to 4,528 ft) off Japan and New Zealand. A 1989 study in Suruga Bay found 23% of the sharks were hermaphrodites, mostly working females, some pregnant, that also carried male claspers. |
| Traveller lanternshark | Etmopterus viator | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; viator, Latin for traveler, for its scattered Southern Hemisphere range. Fact Described in 2011 from the Kerguelen Plateau and also found off New Zealand and South Africa. Females reach 57.7 cm (22.7 in), it lives at 830 to 1,400 m (2,720 to 4,590 ft), and litters hold 2 to 10 pups. |
| Hawaiian lanternshark | Etmopterus villosus | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; villosus, Latin for shaggy, for skin covered in small plates each tipped with a slender spine. Fact Reaches 65 cm (25.7 in) and lives around 1.61 km (1 mi) down around the Hawaiian Islands and up the chain to the Koko seamount, with a black mark above its pelvic fins. |
| Green lanternshark | Etmopterus virens | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; virens, Latin for green, for its shimmering green belly in life. Fact Only 26 cm (10 in), it lives at 196 to 915 m (643 to 3,002 ft) in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean and is thought to hunt in packs, swarming over squid and octopus bigger than itself with each shark cutting off pieces. A yellow spot over its pineal gland works as a window for sensing light. |
| West Australian lanternshark | Etmopterus westraliensis | Name Etmopterus, meaning not explained by its author, probably Greek for cut fin; westraliensis, for Western Australia, the only place it is known from. Fact Described in 2025 from six specimens caught off Western Australia between Ledge Point and Exmouth at around 609 m (2,000 ft). It reaches 39 cm (15 in) and glows from its belly and flanks. |
| Viper dogfish | Trigonognathus kabeyai | Name Trigonognathus, Greek for triangular jaw; kabeyai honors Hiromichi Kabeya, captain of the bottom trawler Seiryo Maru, who collected the first two specimens in 1986. Fact Its narrow triangular jaws shoot forward to grab prey with widely spaced fang like teeth, and it swallows fish whole up to about 40% of its own length. Females reach 54 cm (21 in), it glows from its underside, and it rests near the bottom at 270 to 360 m (890 to 1,180 ft) by day then rises above 150 m (490 ft) at night off Japan, Taiwan and Hawaii. |
Roughsharks Oxynotidae · 5 species
Stout, triangular sharks with high sail-like dorsal fins and rough skin, from the deep slopes of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Australasia.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Prickly dogfish | Oxynotus bruniensis | Name Oxynotus, Greek for sharp back, for its keeled back; bruniensis, for Bruny Island, Tasmania, where the first specimen was found dried but well preserved. Fact A humpbacked, triangular bodied shark with extremely rough skin and two tall sail like dorsal fins. It grows to at least 75 cm (30 in), lives at 45 to 1,067 m (148 to 3,501 ft) off southern Australia and New Zealand, bears about seven pups, and is listed as Near Threatened. |
| Caribbean roughshark | Oxynotus caribbaeus | Name Oxynotus, Greek for sharp back, for its keeled back; caribbaeus, for the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, where the first was taken. Fact About 50 cm (20 in) long, and no female has ever been examined. It lives at 400 to 450 m (1,310 to 1,480 ft) in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, with a chubby blunt head, light grey skin with dark bands, and skin denticles unusually large for its size. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Angular roughshark | Oxynotus centrina | Name Oxynotus, Greek for sharp back, for its keeled back; centrina, from Latin centrum and Greek kentron, a sharp point, for its dorsal spines, a name in use since 1524. Fact Reaches about 1.5 m (4.9 ft), though most are under 1 m. Its body is triangular in cross section with knobs of denticles above the eyes and huge spiracles, and it glides along the seabed eating worms at 50 to 660 m (160 to 2,170 ft) from Norway to South Africa and across the Mediterranean. Listed as Endangered. |
| Japanese roughshark | Oxynotus japonicus | Name Oxynotus, Greek for sharp back, for its keeled back; japonicus, for Japan, where it was found in Suruga Bay. Fact Known from only a handful of specimens from Suruga Bay and the Enshunada Sea off Japan at 150 to 350 m (490 to 1,150 ft). It reaches 64.5 cm (25.4 in), is dark brown with white lips, and is listed as Vulnerable. |
| Sailfin roughshark | Oxynotus paradoxus | Name Oxynotus, Greek for sharp back, for its keeled back; paradoxus, Latin for strange, because Frade could not tell whether its backward pointing dorsal spine marked a new species or an odd angular roughshark. Fact Up to 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in), living at 265 to 720 m (870 to 2,360 ft) from Scotland to Senegal. Its first dorsal spine angles backward, unlike any other Atlantic roughshark, its eyes shine green in life, and a big oily liver keeps this weak swimmer afloat. Listed as Vulnerable. |
Sleeper sharks Somniosidae · 17 species
Slow, bulky cold-water sharks; the Greenland shark lives for centuries.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Portuguese dogfish | Centroscymnus coelolepis | Name Centroscymnus, meaning not explained by its author (probably a blend of Centrophorus and Scymnus for its mixed teeth); coelolepis, Greek for hollow scale, for its concave skin denticles. Fact The deepest living shark known, recorded at 3,675 m (12,057 ft) and most common at 400 to 2,000 m (1,300 to 6,600 ft) on slopes and abyssal plains worldwide. It reaches 1.2 m (3.9 ft), its large eyes shine yellow green and are tuned to spot glowing prey, and litters reach 29 pups. Listed as Near Threatened. |
| Roughskin dogfish | Centroscymnus owstonii | Name Centroscymnus, meaning not explained by its author (probably a blend of Centrophorus and Scymnus for its mixed teeth); owstonii honors Alan Owston, an English businessman and collector of Asian wildlife who obtained the first specimen. Fact Reaches 121 cm (48 in) and lives at 100 to 1,500 m (330 to 4,920 ft) across the Indian, south Atlantic and south Pacific oceans. At 750 to 2,050 m it makes up more than 60% of the fish biomass in some deep sea communities. |
| Longnose velvet dogfish | Centroselachus crepidater | Name Centroselachus, Greek for spine shark, for spines on both dorsal fins; crepidater, Latin for low shoe plus black, from the Portuguese name sapata preta, black shoe. Fact Reaches 130 cm (51 in) and lives at 230 to 1,500 m (750 to 4,920 ft) all around the Southern Hemisphere, hunting midwater fishes and squid. |
| Whitetail dogfish | Scymnodalatias albicauda | Name Scymnodalatias, from Scymnodon, where it was first placed, and Dalatias, for its lack of dorsal spines; albicauda, Latin for white tail, for the white on its tail fin. Fact Known only from a few specimens taken by tuna longliners and trawlers off southern Australia and New Zealand at 150 to 500 m (490 to 1,640 ft). It reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft) and carries at least 59 pups in one litter, a huge number for a shark. |
| Azores dogfish | Scymnodalatias garricki | Name Scymnodalatias, from Scymnodon, where it was first placed, and Dalatias, for its lack of dorsal spines; garricki honors Jack Garrick, the New Zealand shark biologist who proposed the genus in 1956. Fact Only two specimens are known, the first caught north of the Azores and the second in 2001. It lives at 300 to 2,000 m (980 to 6,560 ft) in the northeast Atlantic. |
| Sparsetooth dogfish | Scymnodalatias oligodon | Name Scymnodalatias, from Scymnodon, where it was first placed, and Dalatias, for its lack of dorsal spines; oligodon, Greek for few teeth, for fewer upper teeth than its relatives. Fact A very rare shark known from the first specimen, taken in the subtropical southeast Pacific at up to 200 m (660 ft). Its biology is unknown. |
| Sherwood dogfish | Scymnodalatias sherwoodi | Name Scymnodalatias, from Scymnodon, where it was first placed, and Dalatias, for its lack of dorsal spines; sherwoodi honors C. W. Sherwood, who found the shark washed up on a Canterbury, New Zealand beach and gave it to the local museum. Fact Found only around New Zealand, and the one specimen studied was about 80 cm (31 in) long. The first known example was picked up dead on a beach rather than caught at sea. |
| Japanese velvet dogfish | Scymnodon ichiharai | Name Scymnodon, Greek for cub tooth, for the big triangular cutting teeth in its lower jaw; ichiharai honors Tadayoshi Ichihara of Tokai University, who suggested the authors study this shark. Fact A harmless deepwater sleeper shark known from Suruga Bay and nearby Japanese waters at 500 to 800 m (1,600 to 2,600 ft). Its eggs hatch inside the mother. |
| Largespine velvet dogfish | Scymnodon macracanthus | Name Scymnodon, Greek for cub tooth, for the big triangular cutting teeth in its lower jaw; macracanthus, Greek for large thorn, for its stout dorsal spines. Fact Reaches 68 cm (27 in) and lives at 650 to 920 m (2,130 to 3,020 ft) off the Strait of Magellan and New Zealand. Scientists have shuffled it among three genera because its skin denticles and fin spines point different ways. |
| Knifetooth dogfish | Scymnodon ringens | Name Scymnodon, Greek for cub tooth, for the big triangular cutting teeth in its lower jaw; ringens, Latin for gaping, for its big open mouth. Fact Reaches 1.1 m (3.6 ft) and lives at 200 to 1,600 m (660 to 5,250 ft) from Scotland to Senegal and off New Zealand. |
| Southern sleeper shark | Somniosus antarcticus | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; antarcticus, Latin for of the Antarctic, as Whitley took it for the first shark recorded there. Fact Reaches 4.4 m (14 ft) and lives at about 400 to 1,100 m (1,312 to 3,608 ft) around the southern oceans, ambushing giant and colossal squid. In 2025 one was seen at 490 m (1,608 ft) in the South Shetland Trough off Antarctica. |
| Taiwan sleeper shark | Somniosus cheni | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; cheni honors Wen Jong Chen of a Taitung fishermen's association for 30 years of samples and research help. Fact Known from a single adult, a pregnant female 1.34 m (4.4 ft) long carrying 33 embryos, caught near eastern Taiwan in 2017 and described as a new species in 2020. |
| Frog shark | Somniosus longus | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; longus, Latin for long, perhaps for Tanaka's description of its oblong shape. Fact Fewer than a dozen specimens have ever been collected, off Japan, New Zealand and the Nazca Ridge. Females reach 130 cm (51 in), and it lives at 120 to 1,116 m (390 to 3,660 ft). |
| Greenland shark | Somniosus microcephalus | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; microcephalus, Greek for small head, for its short rounded snout. Fact The longest lived backboned animal known: eye lens dating in 2016 showed a lifespan of at least 272 years, with the oldest shark about 392 years, and it does not breed until around 150. The largest confirmed was 6.4 m (21 ft) and 1,023 kg (2,255 lb), it cruises at 0.34 m (1.1 ft) per second, and its toxic flesh is fermented into the Icelandic dish hakarl. |
| Pacific sleeper shark | Somniosus pacificus | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; pacificus, Latin for of the Pacific, where it lives. Fact The largest verified one was 4.4 m (14 ft) and 888 kg (1,958 lb). It glides silently from the surface to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) as a stealth predator in the North Pacific, and since it has no eyelid membrane it rolls its eyes back to protect them when biting. Listed as Near Threatened. |
| Little sleeper shark | Somniosus rostratus | Name Somniosus, Latin for sleepy, because Lesueur thought the small fins made these sharks sluggish; rostratus, Latin for beaked, for its long snout. Fact Reaches 1.43 m (4.7 ft) and lives over sandy mud at 200 to 1,000 m (660 to 3,280 ft), recorded as deep as 2,200 m (7,200 ft), in the northeast Atlantic and western Mediterranean. Females bear 8 to 17 pups and it feeds on squid. |
| Velvet dogfish | Zameus squamulosus | Name Zameus, from zame, Japanese for shark, since it was first known only from Japan; squamulosus, Latin for covered with tiny scales, which give its skin a velvety look. Fact Reaches 84 cm (33 in) and ranges worldwide from the surface to 2,000 m (6,560 ft). Unlike most of its family it glows, with light organs on its underside, and its overlapping scales are thought to boost the glow. |
Dogfish sharks Squalidae · 41 species
The spurdogs: a spine before each dorsal fin, no anal fin. The spiny dogfish was once the most abundant shark on Earth.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Roughskin spurdog | Cirrhigaleus asper | Name Cirrhigaleus, Latin for tuft plus galeus, Aristotle's word for a small shark, for its barbels; asper, Latin for rough, for its rough skin. Fact Reaches 1.2 m (3.9 ft) and lives at 200 to 600 m (660 to 2,000 ft) around the world between 35°N and 35°S. Litters hold 21 to 22 pups, and it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Southern mandarin dogfish | Cirrhigaleus australis | Name Cirrhigaleus, Latin for tuft plus galeus, Aristotle's word for a small shark, for its barbels; australis, Latin for southern, for its Southern Hemisphere range. Fact Described in 2007, it reaches 1.25 m (4.1 ft) though most are under 1 m, and lives at 146 to 640 m (480 to 2,100 ft) off southeastern Australia and New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. Unusually long barbels hang from its nose. |
| Mandarin dogfish | Cirrhigaleus barbifer | Name Cirrhigaleus, Latin for tuft plus galeus, Aristotle's word for a small shark, for its barbels; barbifer, Latin for bearing barbels, for the mustache like barbels on its nasal flaps. Fact Long nasal barbels, thought to help it find prey, are its trademark. A 125 cm (49 in) female is among the longest recorded, and it lives at 140 to 650 m (460 to 2,130 ft) off southern Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia. |
| Spiny dogfish | Squalus acanthias | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; acanthias, Latin for a spiny thing, for its dorsal spines. Fact Once the most abundant shark on Earth, hunting in packs of thousands and found deeper than 700 m (2,300 ft). Its pregnancy lasts 18 to 24 months, among the longest of any animal, some live nearly 70 years, and its spines carry a mild venom. European stocks fell by at least 95%, so it is Critically Endangered there and Vulnerable worldwide. |
| Brazilian whitetail dogfish | Squalus albicaudus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; albicaudus, Latin for white tail, for the white lower lobe of its tail fin. Fact Described in 2016 from off Brazil, where it lives at 195 to 421 m (640 to 1,380 ft). The longest measured was 52.5 cm (20.7 in). |
| Eastern highfin spurdog | Squalus albifrons | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; albifrons, Latin for white brow, for the white upper eye margin seen in sharks that have shed their denticles. Fact Reaches 65 cm (26 in) and lives at 220 to 510 m (720 to 1,670 ft) on the continental shelf off Queensland. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Western highfin spurdog | Squalus altipinnis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; altipinnis, Latin for high finned, for its upright dorsal fin. Fact Described in 2007 from the continental shelf off Western Australia, where it lives at 220 to 510 m (720 to 1,670 ft). Listed as Data Deficient. |
| Northeastern Brazilian dogfish | Squalus bahiensis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; bahiensis, for the coast of Bahia, Brazil, the only place it seems to live. Fact Described in 2016 from off Brazil. The longest measured was 69 cm (27.2 in). |
| Long-snouted African spurdog | Squalus bassi | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; bassi honors Alan John Bass, a shark specialist at the Oceanographic Research Institute in Durban, South Africa. Fact The long-snouted African spurdog of the southeastern Atlantic off South Africa reaches 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in). It was named in 2017 when scientists split the old "shortspine spurdog" of the region into several species. |
| Longnose spurdog | Squalus blainville | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; blainville honors Henri de Blainville, a French anatomist who named several shark groups in 1816. Fact Reaches about 1 m (3.3 ft) and lives over continental shelves in all oceans at 15 to 800 m (50 to 2,620 ft). |
| Boretzi's dogfish | Squalus boretzi | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; boretzi honors Leonid Boretz of the Pacific fisheries research center in Vladivostok for his work on fishes of the Northwest Pacific Ridge. Fact A spurdog of the northwest Pacific described in 2019 from the seamounts of the Emperor and Northwest Pacific ridges, the deep underwater mountain chains Soviet research ships surveyed. |
| Japanese shortnose spurdog | Squalus brevirostris | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; brevirostris, Latin for short snouted, shorter than the Japanese spurdog. Fact Reaches 60 cm (24 in) and lives from southern Japan to the South China Sea. |
| Bighead spurdog | Squalus bucephalus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; bucephalus, Greek for bull headed, for its bulky head. Fact A stocky shark with a hump behind its broad head, reaching 90 cm (35 in) at 448 to 800 m (1,470 to 2,625 ft) south of New Caledonia and on the Norfolk Ridge. It is the only Squalus with both one pointed and three pointed skin denticles, and it is listed as Data Deficient. |
| Greeneye spurdog | Squalus chloroculus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; chloroculus, Greek and Latin for green eye, for the vivid green eyes of fresh specimens. Fact Reaches 85.6 cm (33.7 in) and lives at 216 to 1,360 m (709 to 4,462 ft) off southern Australia from Eucla to Jervis Bay, with bright green eyes. A 2021 report named it one of four species threatened with extinction by trawling. |
| Genie's dogfish | Squalus clarkae | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; clarkae honors Eugenie Clark, a pioneer of marine science and Gulf of Mexico deep sea research. Fact Usually 50 to 70 cm (20 to 28 in), it lives in the Gulf of Mexico and western Atlantic and was counted as the shortspine spurdog until genetic work split it off in 2018. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Fatspine spurdog | Squalus crassispinus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; crassispinus, Latin for thick spined, for its stout dorsal spines. Fact A rare, small and slender dogfish with a small barbel on each nasal flap and very stout spines on both dorsal fins. It is light grey with no white spots and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Cuban dogfish | Squalus cubensis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; cubensis, for Havana, Cuba, where the first specimen was taken. Fact Venomous spines in front of each dorsal fin cause redness, swelling and intense pain. It lives from North Carolina to Florida and Cuba and has been recorded off Colombia since 2016, with mature females around 198 m (650 ft) and young males deeper near 341 m (1,120 ft). Listed as Least Concern because its numbers have grown. |
| Edmund's spurdog | Squalus edmundsi | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; edmundsi honors Matt Edmunds, an Australian marine ecologist, for his early 1990s research on Australian Squalus. Fact Described in 2007 from off western Australia and Indonesia. The longest measured was 70 cm (27.6 in). |
| Taiwan spurdog | Squalus formosus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; formosus, for Formosa, the old name for Taiwan. Fact Discovered in Taiwan's Tashi fish market and also found off Kyushu and Shikoku in Japan, it reaches at least 81 cm (32 in). Its closest relative is Australia's eastern highfin spurdog, and for years it was wrongly called Squalus blainville. |
| Eastern longnose spurdog | Squalus grahami | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; grahami honors Ken Graham, an Australian fish scientist who collected the first specimen. Fact Reaches 64 cm (25 in) and lives at 220 to 500 m (720 to 1,640 ft) off northern Queensland. Listed as Near Threatened. |
| Northern spiny dogfish | Squalus griffini | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; griffini, not confirmed by its author, but likely honors Louis T. Griffin of the Auckland Museum, who wrote on New Zealand fishes. Fact Reaches 89.9 cm (35.4 in) and lives off New Zealand's North Island, where it is also called the brown dogfish. |
| Hawaiian spurdog | Squalus hawaiiensis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; hawaiiensis, for the Hawaiian Archipelago, where it was found. Fact Reaches 75 cm (30 in) and lives from the surface to 950 m (3,120 ft) around the Hawaiian Islands. It was split from the shortspine spurdog in 2018 after body and gene comparisons with Japanese sharks, and it is listed as Least Concern. |
| Indonesian shortsnout spurdog | Squalus hemipinnis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; hemipinnis, Latin for half finned, for the deep V shaped notch in the rear edge of its second dorsal fin. Fact Described in 2007 from off Indonesia. The longest measured was 52.2 cm (20.6 in). |
| Indian spurdog | Squalus hima | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; hima honors the second author's daughter. Fact The Indian spurdog, 47.5 cm (19 in) at most, was described in 2024 from the western Indian Ocean off India, one of the newest sharks on this list. |
| Japanese spurdog | Squalus japonicus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; japonicus, for Japan, where it was found in Suruga Bay. Fact Females reach 56 to 80 cm (22 to 31.5 in), and it lives at 52 to 400 m (171 to 1,312 ft) from Japan and Korea to the Philippines. It bears 2 to 8 pups after 11 to 12 months and is listed as Endangered because so many are caught as bycatch. |
| Seychelles spurdog | Squalus lalannei | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; lalannei honors Maurice Lousteau Lalanne of the Seychelles environment ministry, who organized the expedition that collected the first specimen. Fact Described in 2003 from off the Seychelles. The longest measured was 61.5 cm (24.2 in). |
| Atlantic lobefin dogfish | Squalus lobularis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; lobularis, Latin for lobe like, for its broad lobe shaped dorsal and pectoral fins. Fact Described in 2016 from off Brazil to Argentina. The longest measured was 64 cm (25.2 in). |
| La Réunion longspine spurdog | Squalus longispinis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; longispinis, Latin for long spined, for its long dorsal spines. Fact The La Réunion longspine spurdog, up to 73 cm (29 in), was described in 2023 from deep water off Réunion in the western Indian Ocean, named for the long spines before its dorsal fins. |
| Malagasy skinny spurdog | Squalus mahia | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; mahia, Malagasy for skinny, for its slender body, thin spines and narrow tail. Fact The Malagasy skinny spurdog, up to 59 cm (23 in), lives off Madagascar in the western Indian Ocean. Its name is the Malagasy word for skinny, for its slim body and narrow tail. |
| Smith's dogfish shark | Squalus margaretsmithae | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; margaretsmithae honors Margaret Mary Smith, first director of the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology and a champion of women in science. Fact Smith's dogfish shark, up to 54 cm (21 in), lives in the eastern Atlantic off southern Africa. It was named in 2017 for Margaret Mary Smith, who ran South Africa's leading fish institute. |
| Shortnose spurdog | Squalus megalops | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; megalops, Greek for big eye, for its long eye socket. Fact Females reach 78 cm (31 in) off southern Africa and Australia, with confirmed records in the Mediterranean. Females do not breed until about 15 years old, live up to 46 years, and carry a pregnancy for about 2 years to produce only 2 to 4 pups. |
| Blacktailed spurdog | Squalus melanurus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; melanurus, Greek for black tailed, for the black patch on its lower tail lobe. Fact Reaches 75 cm (30 in) and lives around 320 m (1,050 ft) off New Caledonia, where it hosts several parasites including an isopod that clings to its skin. |
| Shortspine spurdog | Squalus mitsukurii | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; mitsukurii honors Kakichi Mitsukuri, dean at the Imperial University of Tokyo, who was with the authors at Misaki when the first specimen was caught. Fact Reaches 75 cm (30 in) and lives from the surface to 950 m (3,120 ft) off Japan. It was once thought to live worldwide, but later studies split off several species, including the Hawaiian spurdog. |
| Philippines spurdog | Squalus montalbani | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; montalbani, not confirmed by its author, but probably honors Filipino fisheries biologist Heraclio Montalban; it replaced the already used name philippinus. Fact Large for a dogfish, with females reaching 94.5 cm (37.2 in). It lives at 154 to 1,370 m (505 to 4,490 ft) from the Philippines and Indonesia to Australia, bears 4 to 16 pups, and is listed as Vulnerable after a decline of more than 30%. |
| Western longnose spurdog | Squalus nasutus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; nasutus, Latin for large nosed, for its long snout. Fact A rare, small and slender dogfish with a narrow head, a long narrow snout and a short barbel on each nasal flap, light grey with a dark blotch on the tail. Listed as Near Threatened. |
| Bartail spurdog | Squalus notocaudatus | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; notocaudatus, Greek and Latin for marked tail, for the dark bar on its tail fin. Fact Reaches 62 cm (24 in) and lives at 220 to 450 m (720 to 1,480 ft) on the continental shelf off Queensland. Listed as Least Concern. |
| Humpback Western dogfish | Squalus quasimodo | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; quasimodo, for the hunchback in Victor Hugo's novel, for its humped body. Fact Described in 2016 from off Brazil, it carries a hump on its back that inspired its name. The longest measured was 85 cm (33.5 in). |
| Cyrano spurdog | Squalus rancureli | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; rancureli is not listed on ETYFish and its page does not explain the name. Fact Described in 1979 by Fourmanoir and Rivaton, it reaches 77 cm (30 in) and lives at 320 to 400 m (1,050 to 1,310 ft) in the western central Pacific between 16°S and 18°S. |
| Kermadec spiny dogfish | Squalus raoulensis | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; raoulensis, for Raoul Island, New Zealand, where it was found. Fact Described in 2007 from off the Kermadec Islands. The longest measured was 68.1 cm (26.8 in), and New Zealand lists it as Data Deficient. |
| Shirai's spurdog | Squalus shiraii | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; shiraii honors Shigeru Shirai of Tokyo University of Agriculture for his work on dogfish classification. Fact Shirai's spurdog of the northwest Pacific off Japan reaches 77 cm (30 in) and was described in 2020, one of several Japanese spurdogs long confused with the shortspine spurdog. |
| Pacific spiny dogfish | Squalus suckleyi | Name Squalus, Latin for a dirty fish thought unfit to eat, an ancient name for sharks; suckleyi honors George Suckley, a physician and naturalist who collected the first specimen. Fact Reaches 160 cm (63 in) and lives up to 100 years, the longest lived dogfish, with a pregnancy of 18 to 24 months and two venomous spines. It ranges across the North Pacific from Korea and Japan to Alaska and Baja California and was lumped with the spiny dogfish until body and gene studies split them. Listed as Least Concern. |
Carpet sharks Orectolobiformes · 45 species
A short mouth set in front of the eyes, skin whiskers (barbels) and a spiracle behind each eye. The whale shark is the giant of the group.
Blind sharks Brachaeluridae · 2 species
Two small Australian sharks that close their eyes when lifted out of the water.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blue-grey carpet shark | Brachaelurus colcloughi | Name Brachaelurus, Greek for short cat, for the short stout body of a catlike shark; colcloughi honors John Colclough of the Amateur Fisherman's Association of Queensland, who collected many specimens for Ogilby. Fact Reaches 76 cm (30 in) and lives along northeast Australia, mostly in Moreton Bay, usually in water under 6 m (20 ft) deep. Like its cousin the blind shark it shuts its lower eyelids when lifted out of the water. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Blind shark | Brachaelurus waddi | Name Brachaelurus, Greek for short cat, for the short stout body of a catlike shark; waddi first appeared on a lost painting by John Latham, meaning not explained by its author (perhaps an Aboriginal word for a war club). Fact Anglers called it the blind shark because it pulls its eyeballs in and shuts its thick lower eyelids when hauled out of the water; its eyesight is fine. It grows to 1.2 m (3.9 ft) along eastern Australia and can survive up to 18 hours out of water in a drained tide pool. |
Nurse sharks Ginglymostomatidae · 4 species
Sluggish bottom sharks with barbels and a small mouth, famous for resting in piles by day.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Nurse shark | Ginglymostoma cirratum | Name Ginglymostoma, Greek for hinge mouth, for the hinge like corners of the mouth; cirratum, Latin for having tendrils, for the long nasal barbels. Fact Reaches 3.08 m (10 ft 1 in) in the tropical Atlantic and eastern Pacific. It sucks prey into its small mouth with one of the strongest suction forces measured in any water animal, and by day it rests in piles of a dozen or more sharks on the bottom. |
| Pacific nurse shark | Ginglymostoma unami | Name Ginglymostoma, Greek for hinge mouth, for the hinge like corners of the mouth; unami honors UNAM, Mexico's National Autonomous University. Fact Until 2015 it was lumped with the Atlantic nurse shark; it was described that year from a shark caught near Puerto Angel, Mexico, and lives from Baja California to Peru, reaching 2.8 m (9.2 ft). Rated Endangered. |
| Tawny nurse shark | Nebrius ferrugineus | Name Nebrius, Greek for fawnskin, for the reddish fawn color of the back; ferrugineus, Latin for rusty, for its brown color. Fact Grows to 3.2 m (10 ft) on Indo Pacific reefs and hunts octopus at night by jamming its head into holes and sucking prey out. When hooked it spits jets of water at its captor and grunts between jets, making it one of the few sharks known to make noise. |
| Shorttail nurse shark | Pseudoginglymostoma brevicaudatum | Name Pseudoginglymostoma, Greek for false Ginglymostoma, the genus where it was first placed; brevicaudatum, Latin for short tailed, since the tail fin is under a quarter of the body length. Fact A 75 cm (2.5 ft) shark of the east African coast from Kenya to Madagascar, and the only nurse shark known to lay eggs. Captive sharks picked up mussels, cracked the shells and tucked them under rocks without eating the meat. Rated Critically Endangered. |
Bamboo sharks Hemiscylliidae · 17 species
Slender little reef sharks, including the "walking" epaulette sharks that crawl on their fins.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Arabian carpet shark | Chiloscyllium arabicum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; arabicum, for the Arabian (Persian) Gulf where it lives. Fact A slim 78 cm (31 in) shark of the Persian Gulf that was mistaken for the grey bamboo shark until 1980, and no type specimen of it exists. A female lays about 33 eggs a year in batches of four, and during mating the male holds the female's pectoral fin in his mouth for up to 15 minutes. |
| Burmese bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium burmensis | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; burmensis, for Burma (Myanmar), where the type was caught. Fact Known from only four specimens: a 57 cm (22 in) male trawled off Rangoon in 1963 at 29 to 33 m (95 to 108 ft), now in the Smithsonian, plus three sharks found at a fish landing center in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, in 2018. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Bluespotted bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium caeruleopunctatum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; caeruleopunctatum, Latin for blue spotted, for the light blue spots on a gray brown body. Fact A 67 cm (2.2 ft) bamboo shark found only around Madagascar, so poorly known that its Red List rating is Data Deficient. Scientists once lumped it with the whitespotted bamboo shark and only tentatively count it as a species of its own. |
| Grey bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium griseum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; griseum, medieval Latin for gray, its color in preservative (light brown in life). Fact Reaches 74 cm (2.4 ft) on inshore bottoms from the Arabian Sea to Japan and Papua New Guinea. Young sharks wear dark crosswise bands that fade to plain brown in adults. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Hasselt's bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium hasselti | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; hasselti honors Johan Coenraad van Hasselt (1797 to 1823), a Dutch physician and biologist who explored the Dutch East Indies. Fact A 60 cm (2 ft) inshore shark of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia whose egg cases are glued to seabed plants; the young hatch at 94 to 120 mm with black edged crossbands that adults lose. Rated Endangered. |
| Slender bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium indicum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; indicum, for the Indian Ocean, the type locality. Fact A 65 cm (26 in) shark with a mouth set in front of its eyes and a long thin tail, patterned with dark spots and dashes, living on sand and mud close to shore across the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. Rated Vulnerable. |
| White-spotted bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium plagiosum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; plagiosum, for the dark crosswise bands on the body. Fact Grows to 93 cm (37 in) on reefs from Japan to India and is the shark most often kept in home aquariums. In 2002 a clutch of its eggs at the Belle Isle Aquarium in Detroit hatched with no male present, the first known virgin birth in the species. |
| Brownbanded bamboo shark | Chiloscyllium punctatum | Name Chiloscyllium, Greek for lip and small dog, for the broad fleshy lower lip of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; punctatum, Latin for spotted, for the small blackish spots on young sharks. Fact Reaches 1.04 m (3.4 ft) from Japan to northern Australia down to 85 m (279 ft) and can survive up to 12 hours out of water. Its whisker like barbels earned it the nickname cat shark, and in aquariums it lives up to 25 years. |
| Indonesian speckled carpet shark | Hemiscyllium freycineti | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; freycineti honors Louis de Freycinet (1779 to 1841), the French Navy officer whose expedition collected the type. Fact A 46 cm (18 in) shark of the Raja Ampat Islands of West Papua whose spots darken into 8 or 9 upright bars along the body. For years photos of the leopard epaulette shark were printed under its name, which made it seem far more widespread than it is. Rated Near Threatened. |
| Cenderawasih epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium galei | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; galei honors underwater photographer Jeffrey Gale, who won a charity auction to name it and funded protection of its habitat. Fact Lives only on reefs in Cenderawasih Bay, West Papua, in just 2 to 4 m (7 to 13 ft) of water, with seven large dark spots along each side; the largest known is 56.8 cm (22.4 in). Described in 2008 after its name was sold at a conservation auction. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Papuan epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium hallstromi | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; hallstromi honors Edward Hallstrom (1886 to 1970), chairman of Taronga Zoo in Sydney, where the type specimens were kept alive. Fact A 75 cm (2.5 ft) egg laying shark found only off southern Papua New Guinea; the first specimens lived in Sydney's Taronga Zoo before they were described in 1967. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Halmahera epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium halmahera | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; halmahera, for Halmahera island in Indonesia, the type locality. Fact Described in 2013 from two sharks collected near Ternate off Halmahera, Indonesia, that same year. It walks across the seabed on its pectoral fins and wears clusters of brown and white spots arranged in polygon shapes. Rated Near Threatened. |
| Triton epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium henryi | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; henryi honors underwater photographer Wolcott Henry, a supporter of marine taxonomy in western New Guinea. Fact Known only from Triton Bay and nearby waters of West Papua, Indonesia, at 3 to 30 m (10 to 100 ft), where adults average about 80 cm (2.6 ft). Described in 2008 alongside Hemiscyllium galei. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Leopard epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium michaeli | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; michaeli honors photographer and aquarist Scott W. Michael, who noticed it differed from Hemiscyllium freycineti. Fact Covered in dense leopard like spots and reaching 82 cm (32 in), it walks on its paired fins over reefs and tide pools of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, no deeper than 20 m (66 ft). It hid in plain sight under the wrong name until 2010. Rated Vulnerable. |
| Epaulette shark | Hemiscyllium ocellatum | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; ocellatum, for the big black white ringed eyespot above each pectoral fin. Fact Walks instead of swims, wriggling its body and pushing with paddle shaped fins, and even crawls out of the water between tide pools on the Great Barrier Reef. It survives two hours with no oxygen at all, and reaches 107 cm (42 in). |
| Hooded carpet shark | Hemiscyllium strahani | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; strahani honors Australian zoologist Ronald Strahan (1922 to 2010), director of Taronga Zoo, where the type lived in captivity. Fact A 75 cm (2.5 ft) shark of Papua New Guinea that can haul itself over land for short stretches on its strong pectoral fins. Demand from the aquarium trade is the main reason it is rated Vulnerable. |
| Speckled carpet shark | Hemiscyllium trispeculare | Name Hemiscyllium, Greek for half small dog, a shark close to Scyllium and Chiloscyllium; trispeculare, for the three eyespots on its shoulder. Fact Reaches 79 cm (2.6 ft) on shallow coral reefs of northern and western Australia and is a close cousin of the epaulette shark. Rated Least Concern. |
Wobbegongs Orectolobidae · 12 species
Flat, fringed, carpet-patterned ambush hunters of Australian and Indonesian reefs.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tasselled wobbegong | Eucrossorhinus dasypogon | Name Eucrossorhinus, Greek for very fringed snout, for the tassel of skin lobes around the head; dasypogon, Greek for shaggy beard, for the thick fringe of skin flaps on the head. Fact A ring of branching skin flaps runs from the snout tip to the pectoral fins like a beard, hiding it on coral reefs down to 50 m (160 ft) across northern Australia and New Guinea. It waves its tail, which looks like a small fish with an eyespot, to lure prey, and one 1.3 m shark swallowed a 1.0 m bamboo shark whole. Reaches 1.8 m (5.9 ft). |
| Floral banded wobbegong | Orectolobus floridus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; floridus, Latin for full of flowers, for the flowery pattern of bands and blotches on its back. Fact One of the smallest wobbegongs at 75 cm (2.5 ft), living off southwestern Australia at 42 to 85 m (138 to 279 ft). It was described in 2008 together with the dwarf spotted wobbegong. Rated Least Concern. |
| Banded wobbegong | Orectolobus halei | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; halei honors Herbert M. Hale (1895 to 1963), director of the South Australian Museum. Fact Grows to at least 2.06 m (6 ft 9 in) and about 62 kg (137 lb) around southern Australia down to 100 m (330 ft), and bears litters of 17 to 47 pups after a 10 to 11 month pregnancy. For decades it was confused with the ornate wobbegong until it was raised to a full species in 2006. |
| Western wobbegong | Orectolobus hutchinsi | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; hutchinsi honors J. Barry Hutchins, fish curator at the Western Australian Museum, who first flagged it as new in 1983. Fact Spotted as a new species in 1983 but not named until 2006, it lives off Western Australia from the shallows to 106 m (348 ft). Females can store sperm for up to six months, and litters of about 23 pups are born after 9 to 11 months. Males mature at about 111 cm (3.6 ft). |
| Japanese wobbegong | Orectolobus japonicus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; japonicus, belonging to Japan, where the type specimens were collected. Fact A 1 m (3.3 ft) ambush shark of the western Pacific from Japan and Korea to the Philippines that lies nearly motionless all day, using electric sensing pores on its back to detect prey that wanders close. Rated Least Concern. |
| Indonesian wobbegong | Orectolobus leptolineatus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; leptolineatus, Greek and Latin for thin lined, for the fine wormlike markings on its back. Fact Described in 2010 from Indonesian waters, it reaches 120 cm (3.9 ft) and wears a camouflage of thin worm shaped lines over dark bars. Rated Near Threatened. |
| Spotted wobbegong | Orectolobus maculatus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; maculatus, Latin for spotted, for the dense O shaped rings on its back. Fact The giant of the family at up to 3.2 m (10.5 ft), found only around Australia down to 218 m (715 ft). In 1789 Arthur Phillip wrote it up as Watts's Shark after one attacked a dog, and the International Shark Attack File lists four unprovoked bites by it, none fatal. |
| Ornate wobbegong | Orectolobus ornatus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; ornatus, Latin for adorned, for its color pattern or its fringe of head flaps (the describer did not say which). Fact Reaches 1.2 m (3.9 ft) off eastern Australia in water under 100 m (330 ft). Divers often fail to see it until it bites, and a one day old pup was found with a full set of teeth. Fish make up 86.5 percent of its diet. |
| Dwarf spotted wobbegong | Orectolobus parvimaculatus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; parvimaculatus, Latin for little spotted, to set it apart from the larger spotted wobbegong. Fact A small wobbegong reaching 88.5 cm (2.9 ft) off southwestern Australia at 9 to 135 m (30 to 443 ft), first described in 2008. Rated Least Concern. |
| Network wobbegong | Orectolobus reticulatus | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; reticulatus, Latin for netlike, for the network pattern on its back. Fact Known from just four specimens caught off the Kimberley coast and Darwin in northwestern Australia in water under 20 m (66 ft); the largest was a 52.3 cm (20.6 in) female. Described in 2008 after being mistaken for the northern wobbegong. |
| Northern wobbegong | Orectolobus wardi | Name Orectolobus, Greek for stretched out lobe, for the long nasal barbels; wardi honors Charles Melbourne Ward (1903 to 1966), an Australian actor, musician and naturalist who collected the type. Fact The smallest wobbegong at 63 cm (25 in), living in shallow water across northern Australia; its small size makes it a favorite aquarium shark. Rated Least Concern. |
| Cobbler wobbegong | Sutorectus tentaculatus | Name Sutorectus, Latin sutor for cobbler, from its Australian name the cobbler wobbegong, plus a root meaning stretched out or straight; tentaculatus, for the simple unbranched skin flaps on its head. Fact Rows of warty bumps run down its back, unique among wobbegongs, hiding it on rocky reefs of Western Australia around 35 m (110 ft) deep. It reaches 92 cm (36 in) and ambushes crabs, lobsters and abalone. Rated Least Concern. |
Collared carpet sharks Parascylliidae · 8 species
Small, slim, spotted sharks of Australian and East Asian waters with a dark collar.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Barbel-throat carpet shark | Cirrhoscyllium expolitum | Name Cirrhoscyllium, Latin cirrus for a tendril plus Greek for small dog, for the throat barbels of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; expolitum, Latin for polished, because the dried skin looks glossy. Fact A tiny egg laying carpetshark of only 34 cm (13 in) with a pair of whiskers hanging from its throat, known from the South China Sea between Luzon and China at 180 to 190 m (590 to 620 ft). Data Deficient. |
| Taiwan saddled carpet shark | Cirrhoscyllium formosanum | Name Cirrhoscyllium, Latin cirrus for a tendril plus Greek for small dog, for the throat barbels of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; formosanum, belonging to Formosa (Taiwan), where it lives. Fact A small egg laying carpetshark found only around Taiwan down to 110 m (360 ft), reaching 39 cm (15 in). Vulnerable. |
| Saddle carpet shark | Cirrhoscyllium japonicum | Name Cirrhoscyllium, Latin cirrus for a tendril plus Greek for small dog, for the throat barbels of a shark the ancients called a sea dog; japonicum, belonging to Japan, for the type locality at Mimase in Kochi Prefecture. Fact An egg laying carpetshark of 49 cm (19 in) found only around Japan at 250 to 290 m (820 to 950 ft), the largest of the three whisker throated carpetsharks. Least Concern. |
| Collar carpet shark | Parascyllium collare | Name Parascyllium, Greek for near Scyllium, a shark thought to be related to the catsharks; collare, Latin for a neck chain, for the dark unspotted collar around its gills. Fact An egg laying carpetshark found only off eastern Australia, usually near the floor of rocky reefs at 55 to 128 m (180 to 420 ft), reaching 85 cm (33 in). It is common, survives well when thrown back by trawlers and is listed as Least Concern. |
| Elongated carpet shark | Parascyllium elongatum | Name Parascyllium, Greek for near Scyllium, a shark thought to be related to the catsharks; elongatum, Latin for prolonged, for its stretched out body. Fact Described in 2008 from southwestern Australia, it is a strangely slim shark whose head is less than 13 percent of its length; the only measured female was 42.1 cm (16.6 in) long and it lives in water down to 50 m (164 ft). |
| Rusty carpet shark | Parascyllium ferrugineum | Name Parascyllium, Greek for near Scyllium, a shark thought to be related to the catsharks; ferrugineum, Latin for rust colored, for the dark brown spots on its sides and fins. Fact An egg laying shark of southern Australia's rocky reefs and seagrass beds at 5 to 150 m (16 to 490 ft), reaching 80 cm (31 in). It hides in caves by day and comes out at night to hunt crabs, shrimp and shellfish, and its young hatch at about 17 cm (7 in). Least Concern. |
| Sparsely spotted carpet shark | Parascyllium sparsimaculatum | Name Parascyllium, Greek for near Scyllium, a shark thought to be related to the catsharks; sparsimaculatum, Latin for sparsely spotted, since its spots are bigger and fewer than those of its relatives. Fact A deep living carpetshark off Western Australia found at 204 to 245 m (670 to 800 ft), reaching 78.1 cm (2.6 ft). It lays its eggs in pairs and wears a few large rusty brown spots on a yellowish body. |
| Necklace carpet shark | Parascyllium variolatum | Name Parascyllium, Greek for near Scyllium, a shark thought to be related to the catsharks; variolatum, Latin for spotted, for the white spots scattered over its body. Fact A slender white spotted shark of 91 cm (36 in) found only off southern Australia down to 180 m (590 ft), wearing a dark band around its neck like a necklace. It hides in caves or lies camouflaged on the seabed by day and hunts at night. Least Concern. |
Whale shark Rhincodontidae · 1 species
One species, the largest fish alive, a spotted filter feeder up to 18.8 m (61 ft 8 in).
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Whale shark | Rhincodon typus | Name Rhincodon, Greek for rasp tooth (rhinc is likely a misprint of rhine, rasp), for the rows of tiny teeth that look like a file; typus, meaning not explained by its author, marks it as the type species of the genus. Fact The biggest fish alive: a female measured in the Arabian Sea in 2001 was 18.8 m (61.7 ft) long. It strains more than 6,000 liters (1,600 gallons) of water an hour through its gills for plankton, has dived to 1,928 m (6,325 ft), and one 10.6 m female caught in 1996 carried about 300 pups. The first known specimen was harpooned in Table Bay, South Africa, in April 1828. Rated Endangered. |
Zebra shark Stegostomatidae · 1 species
One species, striped as a pup and spotted as an adult, with a tail almost as long as its body.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Zebra shark | Stegostoma tigrinum | Name Stegostoma, Greek for covered mouth, for the snout that hides the upper jaw; tigrinum, Latin for of a tiger, for the black and white bands on young sharks (the name fasciatum is a junior synonym). Fact Pups are striped like zebras, but between 50 and 90 cm (20 and 35 in) long the stripes turn into leopard spots, so adults are often called leopard sharks. It reaches 2.5 m (8.2 ft) on Indo Pacific reefs down to 62 m (200 ft), and captive females have produced pups with no male at all. Rated Endangered. |
Angel sharks Squatiniformes · 26 species
Flat as a ray, with the gill slits on the sides of the head and the mouth at the tip of the snout. Ambush hunters buried in sand.
Angel sharks Squatinidae · 26 species
Flat, ray-like ambush hunters that bury themselves in sand and strike upward.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sawback angelshark | Squatina aculeata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; aculeata, Latin for sharp pointed, for the big thorns on its head and back. Fact Reaches 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, where it is at high risk of extinction after a century of trawling of the sandy bottoms it hunts on. Like every angel shark it lies buried in sand and lunges upward at passing fish. |
| African angelshark | Squatina africana | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; africana, Latin for belonging to Africa, for its range from South Africa to Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar. Fact A western Indian Ocean angel shark of South African and Mozambican coasts, reaching 1.08 m (3 ft 7 in). It was redescribed in a 2023 revision of the African species, and like its relatives it lies buried in sand and snaps upward at fish passing overhead. |
| Eastern angel Shark | Squatina albipunctata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; albipunctata, Latin for white spotted, for its pattern. Fact A flat, winged shark of eastern Australia from Cairns south to Victoria at 37 to 415 m (120 to 1,360 ft), reaching 98.5 cm (3.2 ft) and 17 kg (37 lb), with huge fleshy pectoral fins and a back fully covered in tiny tooth like scales. |
| Argentine angelshark | Squatina argentina | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; argentina, for Argentina, the type having come from off Buenos Aires province. Fact An angel shark of the southwest Atlantic off Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, reaching 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in). It is one of three southwest Atlantic angel sharks protected under Brazilian law; DNA tests on market fish have revealed illegal catches still being sold. |
| Chilean angelshark | Squatina armata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; armata, Latin for armed, for the heavy thorns on its snout, between its eyes and along its back and pectoral fins. Fact The angel shark of the southeast Pacific off Peru and Chile, reaching about 95 cm (3 ft 1 in), with heavy thorns along its snout, between its eyes and down its back. It lies buried in sand and ambushes fish from below. |
| Australian angelshark | Squatina australis | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; australis, Latin for southern, for its range along southern Australia. Fact The Australian angel shark of the southern coast, reaching 1.52 m (5 ft), lives buried in sand and seagrass beds and lunges upward at fish passing overhead. |
| Philippines angelshark | Squatina caillieti | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; caillieti honors Gregor Cailliet, American shark ecologist at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, for his work on shark age and growth. Fact Described in 2011 from the Philippines, where it lives on deep bottoms at 363 to 385 m (1,190 to 1,263 ft); the only measured specimen was a 32.8 cm (13 in) female. |
| Pacific angelshark | Squatina californica | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; californica, belonging to California, with San Francisco Bay as the type locality. Fact Buries itself in sand by day and lunges at passing fish, but also lifts off the bottom at night to hunt. In 1984 alone 310 metric tons (342 US tons) were landed off California, a fishery that crashed the population and is now regulated. |
| David's angel Shark | Squatina david | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; david, in memory of the first author's son David, who died on 7 March 2011. Fact Described in 2016 from the Caribbean coast of South America, from Venezuela and Suriname to Panama, at 100 to 151 m (330 to 495 ft). It reaches 78.7 cm (31 in), and males are dark spotted while females are covered in white spots. |
| Atlantic angelshark | Squatina dumeril | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; dumeril honors French zoologist André Marie Constant Duméril (1774 to 1860), out of Lesueur's esteem for him. Fact The sand devil of the western Atlantic, reaching 1.52 m (5 ft), spends its days buried in sand with only its eyes showing and snaps up fish and squid with a sudden upward lunge of its stretchable jaws. |
| Taiwan angelshark | Squatina formosa | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; formosa, for Formosa (Taiwan), the type locality. Fact A small angel shark of the northwest Pacific around Taiwan, reaching 55 cm (22 in), described in 1972 by Shen and Ting. |
| Angular angelshark | Squatina guggenheim | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; guggenheim honors the Guggenheim Foundation, which apparently funded the study trip behind its description. Fact Reaches 130 cm (4.3 ft) off southern Brazil and Argentina from 4 to 360 m (13 to 1,180 ft). Only its left ovary works, and adult males carry a patch of small spines near the tips of their pectoral fins. Rated Endangered. |
| Disparate angelshark | Squatina heteroptera | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; heteroptera, Greek for different fins, for pectoral and pelvic fins unlike its relatives. Fact A small angel shark of the Gulf of Mexico, reaching about 49 cm (19 in), described in 2007 and named for its pectoral and pelvic fins, which differ in shape from those of its relatives. |
| Japanese angelshark | Squatina japonica | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; japonica, belonging to Japan, with Nagasaki as the type locality. Fact The Japanese angel shark of the northwest Pacific, one of the largest in its family at up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in). It lives off Japan, Korea and China, buried in sand by day. |
| Lea's angelshark | Squatina leae | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; leae, in memory of Lea Marie Cordt, the late sister of the first author's fiancée. Fact A deepwater angel shark of the Saya de Malha Bank in the Indian Ocean, described in 2023 from young specimens caught decades earlier that sat unrecognized until scientists took a fresh look. |
| Indonesian angel Shark | Squatina legnota | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; legnota, Greek for with a colored border, for the dark front edges of its pectoral and pelvic fins. Fact Known from fish landing sites along southern Indonesia, from West Java to Bali and Lombok, and described in 2008; it reaches 134 cm (4.4 ft) and its depth range is still unknown. |
| Small-crested angelshark | Squatina mapama | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; mapama honors MAPAMA, Spain's fisheries and environment ministry, whose research ship Miguel Oliver collected it on cruises off Central and South America. Fact A small angel shark, about 40 cm (16 in), found off Panama and Colombia in the Caribbean and named in 2021 for the Spanish ministry whose research ship Miguel Oliver collected it. Its name in English, small-crested angel shark, comes from the low crest of thorns on its back. |
| Mexican angelshark | Squatina mexicana | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; mexicana, for Mexico, whose Gulf coast it lives off. Fact A small angel shark of the Gulf of Mexico off eastern Mexico, reaching about 88 cm (2 ft 11 in), described in 2007 by Castro-Aguirre, Espinosa Pérez and Huidobro Campos, the same team that named the disparate angel shark. |
| Clouded angelshark | Squatina nebulosa | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; nebulosa, Latin for cloudy, for its dark marbled coloring. Fact The clouded angel shark of the northwest Pacific from Japan to Taiwan, reaching 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in), lies buried on the sea floor and ambushes fish from below like every angel shark. |
| Hidden angelshark | Squatina occulta | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; occulta, Latin for hidden, because it went unrecognized among look alike species living beside it. Fact The hidden angel shark of southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, reaching 1.56 m (5 ft 1 in), went unrecognized until 1991 because it looks so like the angular angel shark. It is threatened and protected under Brazilian law. |
| Smoothback angelshark | Squatina oculata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; oculata, Latin for eyed, for the matching eyespots on some specimens. Fact The smoothback angel shark of the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, reaching 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in), is at high risk of extinction, having vanished from most of its former Mediterranean range. |
| Western angelshark | Squatina pseudocellata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; pseudocellata, Greek and Latin for false little eyes, for the faint eyespots on its pectoral fins. Fact Lives off northwestern Australia at 150 to 312 m (490 to 1,025 ft), reaching 75.1 cm (2.5 ft), with a body so flattened that its trunk looks almost like a ray's. Described in 2008. |
| Angelshark | Squatina squatina | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; squatina, the same word repeated as the species name. Fact Females reach 2.44 m (8 ft) and 80 kg (176 lb) in the eastern Atlantic from Norway to West Africa at 5 to 150 m (16 to 490 ft). By day it lies buried in sand with only its eyes showing, then ambushes flatfish; it has vanished from much of its range and is rated Critically Endangered. |
| Ornate angelshark | Squatina tergocellata | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; tergocellata, Latin for back with little eyes, for the dark edged eyespots on its upper side. Fact One of the smallest angel sharks, reaching only about 60 cm (2 ft), and one of four angel sharks found in Australian waters. |
| Ocellated angelshark | Squatina tergocellatoides | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; tergocellatoides, resembling Squatina tergocellata, though with a longer tail and different pattern. Fact Known from only two specimens from the Taiwan Strait, the larger 63 cm (25 in) long; its habits and depth are unknown. |
| Vari's angelshark | Squatina varii | Name Squatina, from squatum, Pliny's Latin name for the angel shark, likely from Greek words for hide or rasp, for its rough skin; varii honors Richard P. Vari (1949 to 2016) of the Smithsonian, for his work on South American fishes. Fact A deep slope angel shark off Brazil at 195 to 666 m (640 to 2,185 ft), described in 2018, where females reach 132 cm (4.3 ft); it has fewer than 20 white spots on its back or none at all. |
Mackerel sharks Lamniformes · 15 species
A long snout and a big mouth that reaches behind the eyes, no third eyelid. The warm-bodied hunters and the giant filter feeders.
Thresher sharks Alopiidae · 3 species
A tail as long as the body, whipped over the head to stun fish.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Pelagic thresher | Alopias pelagicus | Name Alopias, Greek for fox, from the ancient name fox shark for its long tail; pelagicus, Greek for of the sea, because Nakamura thought it lived higher in the water than its relatives. Fact Its scythe shaped upper tail is nearly as long as the rest of its body, and it uses it to herd and stun schools of small fish in the open Indian and Pacific Oceans. Females reach 3.8 m (12 ft) and give birth to just two pups that can already be 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) long. Endangered. |
| Bigeye thresher | Alopias superciliosus | Name Alopias, Greek for fox, for its long fox like tail; superciliosus, Latin for having a raised eyebrow, for its huge upward looking eyes and the groove above them. Fact Its eyes can be 10 cm (3.9 in) across and point upward to spot prey from below in dim light. It spends the day 300 to 500 m (984 to 1,640 ft) down and rises to shallow water at night, and the biggest on record was 4.9 m (16 ft) and 364 kg (802 lb), caught off New Zealand in 1981. Vulnerable. |
| Common thresher | Alopias vulpinus | Name Alopias, Greek for fox, for its long fox like tail; vulpinus, Latin for fox like. Fact The largest thresher, with a confirmed record of 5.7 m (19 ft), half of which is the whip like upper tail lobe it cracks like a whip to stun fish. The heaviest recorded weighed 510 kg (1,120 lb). It is found worldwide from the surface down to 550 m (1,800 ft). Vulnerable. |
Sand tiger shark Carchariidae · 1 species
One species, the ragged-tooth shark of aquariums, whose pups eat their siblings in the womb.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sand tiger shark | Carcharias taurus | Name Carcharias, Greek for jagged, for its teeth; taurus, Latin for bull, from Pesce Tauro, its name in Sicily where it was first described. Fact The only shark known to gulp air at the surface and hold it in its stomach so it can hover almost motionless. Its unborn pups eat each other in the womb until one 1 m (3.3 ft) survivor is left in each side, and it grows to 3.2 m (10.5 ft). Critically Endangered. |
Basking shark Cetorhinidae · 1 species
One species, the second-largest fish, a filter feeder that strains plankton with its mouth agape.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Basking shark | Cetorhinus maximus | Name Cetorhinus, Latin whale plus an ancient word for shark, for its vast size; maximus, Latin for greatest, since it was once thought the biggest fish alive. Fact The second largest fish in the world; a specimen tangled in a herring net in the Bay of Fundy in 1851 measured 12.27 m (40.3 ft) and was estimated at 16 tonnes. Swimming with its 1 m (3 ft 3 in) wide mouth open, a 5 m (16 ft) basking shark filters up to 450 tonnes of water an hour for plankton. Endangered. |
Mackerel sharks Lamnidae · 5 species
The warm-bodied hunters: great white, makos, porbeagle and salmon shark, torpedo shaped with a crescent tail.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Great white shark | Carcharodon carcharias | Name Carcharodon, Greek for jagged tooth, for its serrated teeth; carcharias, Greek for jagged, the ancient word for shark. Fact The largest predatory fish, with the longest reliably measured at 6.02 m (19.8 ft) and the heaviest at 2,530 kg (5,580 lb). It can sprint at 24 km/h (15 mph), dive to 1,300 m (4,300 ft) and live past 70 years, and its roughly 300 triangular teeth grow up to 7.5 cm (3 in). Vulnerable. |
| Shortfin mako | Isurus oxyrinchus | Name Isurus, Greek for equal tail, though the upper tail lobe is in fact longer; oxyrinchus, Greek for sharp snouted. Fact The fastest shark, cruising at about 50 km/h (31 mph) with bursts up to 74 km/h (46 mph), and warm blooded enough to keep its body 4 to 5.5 C (7 to 10 F) above the sea around it. The longest verified was 4.45 m (14.6 ft), caught off France in 1973. Endangered. |
| Longfin mako | Isurus paucus | Name Isurus, Greek for equal tail; paucus, Latin for few, because it is far rarer than the shortfin mako. Fact Its pectoral fins are at least as long as its head, and it is so uncommon that in eastern Atlantic fisheries the shortfin mako outnumbers it more than 1,000 to one. The largest on record, a female caught off Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1984, was 4.3 m (14 ft). Endangered. |
| Salmon shark | Lamna ditropis | Name Lamna, Greek for a voracious shark, linked to the word for gullet; ditropis, Greek for two keels, for the keels on each side of its tail. Fact A North Pacific hunter of salmon that holds its inner body around 16 to 19 C (61 to 66 F) while swimming in water as cold as 8 C (46 F). It reaches about 3 m (10 ft) and 220 kg (485 lb) and has been tracked diving to 668 m (2,192 ft). Least Concern. |
| Porbeagle | Lamna nasus | Name Lamna, Greek for a voracious shark; nasus, Latin for nose, for its long cone shaped snout. Fact A warm blooded shark whose core runs 8 to 10 C (14 to 18 F) above the surrounding sea, and one of the few sharks seen playing, rolling in kelp and tossing driftwood off Cornwall. The record fish weighed 230 kg (510 lb), caught off Scotland in 1993. Vulnerable, with Mediterranean numbers down more than 99.99 percent. |
Megamouth shark Megachasmidae · 1 species
One species, unknown to science until 1976: a deep-water filter feeder with a huge rubbery mouth.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Megamouth shark | Megachasma pelagios | Name Megachasma, Greek for big gaping mouth; pelagios, Greek for of the sea, for its open ocean life. Fact Unknown to science until November 15, 1976, when one got tangled in the sea anchor of a U.S. Navy ship off Kahuku, Hawaii, at about 165 m (541 ft). Only 296 had ever been seen by March 2025. It swims with its 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in) wide mouth open to strain krill and jellyfish, reaches 5.49 m (18 ft) and has been found down to 1,500 m (4,900 ft). Least Concern. |
Goblin shark Mitsukurinidae · 1 species
One species, a pink deep-sea shark with a blade-like snout and jaws that shoot forward.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Goblin shark | Mitsukurina owstoni | Name Mitsukurina, for Kakichi Mitsukuri, University of Tokyo zoologist who sent the first specimen to Jordan; named for Alan Owston, English collector in Yokohama who got it from a fisherman. Fact A pink skinned deep sea shark whose jaws shoot out almost to the tip of its blade like snout at up to 3.14 m per second (10.3 ft per second) to snap up prey. Its family goes back about 125 million years and it is the only living member. Usually found 270 to 960 m (886 to 3,150 ft) down; a 4.7 m (15 ft) pregnant female landed in Taiwan in 2023 weighed 800 kg (1,800 lb). |
Ragged-tooth sharks Odontaspididae · 2 species
Two deep-water cousins of the sand tiger with big eyes and bulky bodies.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Smalltooth sand tiger | Odontaspis ferox | Name Odontaspis, Greek for tooth shield, for the small side points flanking each main tooth; ferox, Latin for fierce, for its toothy look and reported greed. Fact A rare deep water cousin of the sand tiger reaching 5.2 m (17 ft) and 289 kg (637 lb), caught as deep as 880 m (2,890 ft) on rocky shelves worldwide. No pregnant female has ever been found. Catches off New South Wales fell by more than half after the 1970s. Endangered. |
| Bigeye sand tiger | Odontaspis noronhai | Name Odontaspis, Greek for tooth shield; named for Adolfo Cesar de Noronha, director of the Funchal Museum on Madeira, where the first specimen is kept. Fact An extremely rare chocolate brown shark with big orange eyes, first caught off Madeira in April 1941 on a longline set for black scabbardfish and named in 1955. It reaches 3.6 m (12 ft) and lives 60 to 1,000 m (200 to 3,280 ft) down. Least Concern. |
Crocodile shark Pseudocarchariidae · 1 species
One species, a small oceanic shark with huge eyes and a crocodile-like mouth.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Crocodile shark | Pseudocarcharias kamoharai | Name Pseudocarcharias, Greek false plus Carcharias, the sand tiger genus (ETYFish family page not reachable this run); kamoharai, honors a person named Kamohara, as in its other name Kamohara's sand shark. Fact The smallest of the mackerel sharks at 1.1 m (3.6 ft) and about 4 to 6 kg (9 to 13 lb), with huge eyes for hunting at night. In 1985 it kept biting through AT&T's first deep sea fiber optic cables off the Canary Islands, drawn by their electric fields, until the cables were wrapped in steel tape. |
Sawsharks Pristiophoriformes · 10 species
A long flat snout edged with teeth and a pair of barbels, five or six gill slits.
Sawsharks Pristiophoridae · 10 species
A flat snout edged with teeth, used to slash prey, and a pair of barbels halfway along it.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Anna's sixgill sawshark | Pliotrema annae | Name Pliotrema, Greek for more holes, for its six gill slits instead of the usual five; annae honors Anna Weigmann Huerta, the lead author's niece. Fact One of only three sharks with six gill slits in the sawshark family, known from the shallows off Zanzibar at 20 to 35 m (66 to 115 ft). Described in 2020 and so poorly known that it is rated Data Deficient. |
| Kaja's sixgill sawshark | Pliotrema kajae | Name Pliotrema, Greek for more holes, for its six gill slits instead of the usual five; kajae honors Kaja Magdalena Weigmann, the lead author's daughter, and also matches a Frisian word for warrior, a nod to its saw. Fact A six gilled sawshark described in 2020 from off Madagascar and the Mascarene Ridge at 214 to 320 m (700 to 1,050 ft), where females reach 143 cm (4.7 ft). One pregnant female of 117 cm carried about six eggs, and pups are born at about 35 cm (14 in). |
| Warren's sixgill sawshark | Pliotrema warreni | Name Pliotrema, Greek for more holes, for its six gill slits instead of the usual five; warreni honors Ernest Warren (1871 to 1945), director of the Natal Government Museum, who sent specimens to the British Museum. Fact Unlike almost every other shark it has six gill slits, and the teeth of its saw spread onto the sides of its head. Females pass 136 cm (54 in) off South Africa and Mozambique at 37 to 500 m (120 to 1,640 ft), where it feels out prey with its barbels and then stuns it with the saw. |
| Common sawshark | Pristiophorus cirratus | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; cirratus, Latin for curly or fringed, for the long stringy barbels under the saw. Fact Its saw makes up 30 percent of its 1.37 m (4 ft 6 in) body. It drags its barbels along the seabed off southern Australia at 20 to 600 m (66 to 1,970 ft) to find prey, then stirs the sand and slashes with the saw. Pups are born with the saw teeth folded flat so they do not hurt the mother. |
| Tropical sawshark | Pristiophorus delicatus | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; delicatus, Latin for dainty, for the fine teeth on its long saw. Fact Lives only on the upper slope off Queensland, Australia, at 246 to 405 m (807 to 1,329 ft), where females reach 85 cm (33 in). It went by the placeholder name Pristiophorus sp. B until it was formally described in 2008. Rated Least Concern. |
| Japanese sawshark | Pristiophorus japonicus | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; japonicus, belonging to Japan, though the type locality was never stated. Fact Reaches 1.36 m (4 ft 6 in) on sandy and muddy bottoms off Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China at 50 to 800 m (160 to 2,620 ft). Females give birth to about 12 pups each 30 cm (12 in) long. Rated Least Concern. |
| Lana's sawshark | Pristiophorus lanae | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; lanae honors Lana Ebert, the senior author's niece and a shark enthusiast, on her graduation from the University of San Francisco. Fact A small plain brown sawshark of the Philippines, found off Apo Island and southern Luzon at 230 to 590 m (755 to 1,935 ft) and reaching about 73 cm (29 in). It was described in 2013. |
| African dwarf sawshark | Pristiophorus nancyae | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; nancyae honors Nancy Packard Burnett, cofounder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, for backing shark research at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. Fact Described in 2011 from a shark trawled off Mozambique at 490 m (1,600 ft); it lives on the deep shelf at 286 to 500 m (938 to 1,640 ft), with a toothed saw that makes up a third of its length. Its Red List status has not yet been assessed. |
| Southern sawshark | Pristiophorus nudipinnis | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; nudipinnis, Latin for bare finned, for its mostly scaleless dorsal fins. Fact A slate gray sawshark with a short narrow saw, females reaching about 124 cm (49 in). It gives birth twice a year to litters of 7 to 14 pups, each about 35 cm (14 in) long. Rated Least Concern. |
| Bahamas sawshark | Pristiophorus schroederi | Name Pristiophorus, Greek for saw bearer, for the sawlike snout; schroederi, patronym not identified by its authors, almost certainly for William C. Schroeder (1895 to 1977), the Woods Hole expert on sharks and rays. Fact The first sawshark ever found in the western hemisphere, described in 1960 from three sharks of 38.3, 64.5 and 80.5 cm (15 to 32 in) caught by accident during fishing surveys off the Bahamas. It lives on deep slopes off the Bahamas and Cuba at 400 to 1,000 m (1,310 to 3,280 ft), with 47 or 48 spines on each side of its saw. |
Bullhead sharks Heterodontiformes · 10 species
A spine in front of each dorsal fin, a pig-like snout and two kinds of teeth: pointed in front, flat molars behind.
Bullhead sharks Heterodontidae · 10 species
Pig-snouted sharks with a spine before each dorsal fin and molar teeth for crushing shellfish; they lay spiral egg cases.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Horn shark | Heterodontus francisci | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth, for its pointed front teeth and flat crushing back teeth; francisci, for San Francisco, California, in ETYFish's reading, though it lives no farther north than Monterey Bay. Fact A sluggish night hunter of California and Mexican reefs, usually in 2 to 11 m (7 to 36 ft) of water, that clambers over the bottom on its thick paired fins and crunches sea urchins and crabs. It reaches 1.22 m (4 ft) and returns to the same resting spot every day. Least Concern. |
| Crested hornshark | Heterodontus galeatus | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; galeatus, Latin for helmeted, for the tall ridges above its eyes. Fact Lives off eastern Australia from the shore to 93 m (305 ft) and reaches 1.52 m (5 ft). Its egg cases have spiral flanges and long tendrils, hatchlings are about 22 cm (8.7 in), and it lives up to 12 years. Least Concern. |
| Japanese bullhead shark | Heterodontus japonicus | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; japonicus, for Japan, where the first specimens were collected. Fact A reef shark of Japan, Korea and China living 6 to 100 m (20 to 328 ft) down and reaching 1.2 m (3.9 ft). Females lay two eggs at a time on rocks or kelp as many as 12 times a season, and several females often lay in the same spot. The eggs take about a year to hatch. Least Concern. |
| Painted hornshark | Heterodontus marshallae | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; named for Lindsay Marshall, scientific illustrator and shark scientist who painted every shark and ray for the Chondrichthyan Tree of Life project. Fact Described in 2023 from off Western Australia, where it lives on reefs 125 to 229 m (410 to 751 ft) deep. It is a small shark, 60 cm (24 in) at most, marked with 22 dark bands and saddles. Least Concern. |
| Mexican hornshark | Heterodontus mexicanus | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; mexicanus, for Mexico, where it lives from the Gulf of California south. Fact Lives close to shore from the Gulf of California to Colombia in water no deeper than 50 m (164 ft) and reaches 1.7 m (5.6 ft), the longest of the bullhead sharks. It eats crabs and bottom fish such as midshipmen and is ground into fishmeal. Least Concern. |
| Oman bullhead shark | Heterodontus omanensis | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; omanensis, for Oman, where it was found in the Gulf of Masira. Fact A small bullhead shark known only from central Oman at 72 to 80 m (236 to 262 ft), reaching 61 cm (24 in). Its egg case makes two spiral turns and trails two very long tendrils. Described in 2005 and listed as Data Deficient. |
| Port Jackson shark | Heterodontus portusjacksoni | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; portusjacksoni, for Port Jackson, the harbor of Sydney, Australia, where it was first found. Fact A southern Australian shark reaching 1.65 m (5.4 ft) that lays corkscrew shaped eggs with spiral flanges, wedging 10 to 16 of them into rock crevices in 1 to 5 m (3 to 16 ft) of water each August and September. The eggs take 9 to 12 months to hatch, and adults migrate back to the same breeding reefs every year. Least Concern. |
| Galapagos bullhead shark | Heterodontus quoyi | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; named for Jean Rene Constant Quoy, French naval surgeon and naturalist, a friend and guide of the describer. Fact A poor swimmer that rests motionless on sand flats and boulder reefs off Peru and the Galapagos Islands, usually 16 to 30 m (52 to 98 ft) down. It reaches 1.07 m (3.5 ft) and hatches at 17 cm (6.7 in). Least Concern. |
| Whitespotted bullhead shark | Heterodontus ramalheira | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; named for Joao Ramalheira, captain of the trawler that brought up the first specimen. Fact The deep water bullhead shark, living on the outer shelf and upper slope off Mozambique, South Africa and the Arabian Peninsula at 40 to 305 m (131 to 1,001 ft), usually below 100 m (328 ft). Females reach 83 cm (33 in) and it feeds on crabs. Data Deficient. |
| Zebra bullhead shark | Heterodontus zebra | Name Heterodontus, Greek for different teeth; zebra, for the twelve narrow dark stripes across its body. Fact Striped like a zebra, it lives from Japan to northwestern Australia down to 200 m (656 ft) and reaches 1.25 m (4.1 ft). Females lay auger shaped eggs in pairs among rocks and kelp up to 12 times a season, and the young hatch after about a year at 18 cm (7 in). Least Concern. |
Cow and frilled sharks Hexanchiformes · 7 species
Six or seven gill slits where every other living shark has five, and one dorsal fin. The oldest living order.
Frilled sharks Chlamydoselachidae · 2 species
Eel-shaped living fossils with six frilly gill slits and 300 needle teeth.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| African frilled shark | Chlamydoselachus africana | Name Chlamydoselachus, Greek for cloak shark, for its frilled gill slits; africana, for the Cape Town research ship Africana, which collected one of the first specimens over decades of surveys. Fact A snake bodied shark with six gill slits and needle like three pointed teeth, found off Angola and Namibia at about 409 to 425 m (1,340 to 1,390 ft) and named only in 2009. Its stretchy jaws and belly let it swallow smaller sharks whole; one specimen 92 cm (36 in) long had gulped down a catshark almost half its own length. Least Concern. |
| Frilled shark | Chlamydoselachus anguineus | Name Chlamydoselachus, Greek for cloak shark, for the frilly first gill slits that wrap its throat like a cloak; anguineus, Latin for snake like, for its eel shaped body. Fact A living fossil with an eel like body, six frilled gill slits and about 300 needle sharp teeth, found down to 1,570 m (5,150 ft). Its pregnancies last up to 3.5 years, and females reach 2 m (6.6 ft). Least Concern. |
Cow sharks Hexanchidae · 5 species
Six or seven gill slits and a single dorsal fin far back on the body.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sharpnose sevengill shark | Heptranchias perlo | Name Heptranchias, Greek for seven plus a word of unclear origin, for its seven gill openings; perlo, from the French name Le Perlon, meaning pearl, for its smooth gray skin. Fact One of only two sharks with seven gill slits instead of five, it has huge eyes that glow green in life and lives 300 to 600 m (980 to 1,970 ft) down in most oceans. It reaches 1.4 m (4.6 ft) and gives birth to 9 to 20 pups. Near Threatened. |
| Bluntnose sixgill shark | Hexanchus griseus | Name Hexanchus, Greek for six plus a word of uncertain origin, for its six gill openings; griseus, Latin for gray, from the French name Le Griset. Fact A giant of the deep with six gill slits instead of five and relatives in the fossil record going back about 200 million years. It reaches about 6 m (20 ft) and 1,000 kg (2,200 lb), has been recorded down to 2,500 m (8,200 ft), and bears litters of 22 to 108 pups. Near Threatened. |
| Bigeyed sixgill shark | Hexanchus nakamurai | Name Hexanchus, Greek for six, for its six gill openings; named for Hiroshi Nakamura, a colleague of Teng in Taiwan who had drawn this shark as a bluntnose sixgill in 1936. Fact The bigeyed sixgill shark of the Indian and western Pacific oceans hunts near the sea floor at 90 to 600 m (300 to 2,000 ft), reaches 1.8 m (6 ft) and bears litters of up to 13 pups. Its eyes glow fluorescent green while it is alive. Near Threatened. |
| Atlantic bigeye sixgill shark | Hexanchus vitulus | Name Hexanchus, Greek for six, for its six gill openings; vitulus, Latin for calf, a small cow shark since it is smaller than the bluntnose sixgill. Fact The Atlantic sixgill shark of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, usually below 200 m (660 ft), reaches about 1.8 m (6 ft). Named in 1969, then lumped with the bigeyed sixgill, it was revived as its own species by a 2018 genetic study. |
| Broadnose sevengill shark | Notorynchus cepedianus | Name Notorynchus, meaning not explained by its author, presumably Greek for back snout; named for the Count de Lacepede, who wrote the Histoire Naturelle des Poissons and taught the describer. Fact A seven gilled shark with a single dorsal fin set far back that hunts in bays and estuaries, sometimes in packs to take down big prey. It reaches 3 m (9.8 ft) and 182 kg (401 lb), and a female gives birth to 82 to 95 pups at a time after a 12 month pregnancy. Vulnerable. |
Bramble sharks Echinorhiniformes · 2 species
Two species of deep-water sharks studded with thorn-like denticles, counted as a ninth order by many scientists, filed with the dogfish sharks by others.
Bramble sharks Echinorhinidae · 2 species
Two large deep-water sharks covered in thorn-like denticles.
| Shark | Scientific name | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bramble shark | Echinorhinus brucus | Name Echinorhinus, Greek for hedgehog plus rhinus, an old word for shark, for its thorny skin; brucus, Latin for caterpillar, from the French name chenille de mer, sea caterpillar. Fact Reaches 3.1 m (10 ft) and 200 kg (440 lb), with skin studded by big thorns that fuse into many pointed plates. A sluggish shark that sucks in its prey, it lives mostly at 400 to 900 m (1,300 to 3,000 ft) and is listed as Endangered after steep declines in the northeast Atlantic. |
| Prickly shark | Echinorhinus cookei | Name Echinorhinus, Greek for hedgehog plus rhinus, an old word for shark, for its thorny skin; cookei honors Charles Montague Cook Jr., a shell expert at Honolulu's Bishop Museum who helped the describer. Fact Reaches 4.0 m (13.1 ft) and 266 kg (586 lb) across the Pacific from Oregon to Chile and Japan to New Zealand, usually at 100 to 650 m (330 to 2,130 ft). In Monterey Canyon it gathers in groups of over thirty as shallow as 15 m (49 ft), and the only pregnant female ever examined carried 114 embryos, one of the biggest litters of any shark. |
More about sharks
The Sharks article tells the whole story: what a shark is, how it hunts, the eight orders, the records, the myths and a timeline from 450 million years ago to today. The shark facts pages give hundreds of facts with pictures, and the shark quiz tests what you know. The rest of the World Encyclopedia runs from flags and countries to planets and the sciences.
Frequently asked questions
How many species of sharks are there?
About 565 living species, the number named by scientists as of October 2026. The count rises most years as new sharks are described, many of them small deep-sea species; the tally passed 500 in the 2010s. Books that give a round number, such as 400 or 500, are quoting an older count.
What is the biggest shark species?
The whale shark, a filter feeder that reaches about 18.8 m (61 ft 8 in) and is the largest fish of any kind. The basking shark is second, at up to about 12 m (40 ft). The largest hunting shark is the great white, at about 6 m (20 ft).
What is the smallest shark species?
The dwarf lanternshark, Etmopterus perryi, from deep water off Colombia and Venezuela, which is fully grown at about 20 cm (8 in). A few other lanternsharks and the pygmy shark are nearly as small.
How many orders and families of sharks are there?
Nine orders and 39 families in the arrangement used here, which follows FishBase and Shark References. Many books count eight orders because they file the two bramble sharks with the dogfish sharks. The ground sharks (Carcharhiniformes) are by far the largest order, with more than half of all species.
What is the most dangerous shark species?
Three species account for most serious attacks on people: the great white, the tiger shark and the bull shark. All three are big, hunt large prey and live in waters people swim in. Even so, sharks kill fewer than ten people a year worldwide on average.
What is the rarest shark?
Several sharks are known from only a handful of specimens, and a few may already be gone. The Pondicherry shark of the Indian Ocean was last confirmed in 1979, and the lost shark of the South China Sea, named in 2019 from museum specimens collected decades earlier, is listed as possibly extinct. The Ganges shark and the speartooth shark, river sharks of South Asia and Australia, are among the rarest still known to be alive.
How many sharks are endangered?
About a third of shark species are threatened with extinction. The 2021 global Red List assessment found 36 percent of the 536 shark species then known to be Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered, mainly because of overfishing. Among the famous sharks, the scalloped and great hammerheads, the oceanic whitetip, the sand tiger and the angelshark are Critically Endangered.
Are new shark species still being discovered?
Yes, several in most years. Most new sharks come from deep water or from museum shelves, where a species that looked like a known one turns out to be different. The newest sharks in this list were named in 2025, including the West Australian lanternshark from the Gascoyne coast of Western Australia.
What is the difference between a shark and a ray?
Both are cartilaginous fish, but a ray is flattened with its pectoral fins joined to its head and its gill slits on the underside. A shark keeps its gill slits on the sides of the head, even the flat angel sharks and wobbegongs, which look like rays but are sharks.
Which shark species lives the longest?
The Greenland shark of the North Atlantic. A 2016 study dated the eye lenses of 28 sharks and found the oldest to be about 392 years old, give or take 120, which makes it the longest-lived animal with a backbone. It may not reach adulthood until about 150.
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