A REVIEW OF WESTERN ATLANTIC CAT SHARKS, SCYLIORHINIDAE, WITH 

 DESCRIPTIONS OF A NEW GENUS AND FIVE NEW SPECIES 



By Stewart Springer, Fishery Biologist (Research) 



Bureau of Commercial Fisheries Ichthyological Field Station 



Stanford, Calif. 



ABSTRACT 



A new genus Schroederichthys is described, together 

 with its type species Schroederichthys maculatus from 

 the western Caribbean and a second species 

 Schroederichthys tenuis from the Atlantic off Brazil. 

 Scyliorhinus meadi from the east coast of Florida, 



Scyliorhinus hesperius from the western Caribbean, 

 and Galeus cadenati from the vicinity of Panama are 

 also described. All 15 of the known western Atlantic 

 species are illustrated, and species characters thought 

 to be of value for revisionary studies are noted. 



The purpose of this paper is to review the west- 

 ern Atlantic cat sharks with especial attention to 

 description of those characteristics of genera and 

 species that are of interest for a revision of the 

 cat sharks of the world ; and also to describe new 

 material collected by exploratory fishing vessels 

 of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in the 

 western Atlantic, including representatives of a 

 new genus and five new species. 



For a revision of the family, more material 

 should be examined than is now available in 

 American museum collections. The distinctions 

 between the genera 8cyliorhinus and Halaelurus, 

 for example, appear to be somewhat superficial, 

 but a revision of generic arrangement is imprac- 

 tical without a survey of all known species and the 

 use of a greater number of diagnostic characters 

 than can be gleaned from the terse and noninform- 

 ative descriptions of many of the nominal spe- 

 cies. A family revision which is in progress will 

 provide a better opportunity for treatment of 

 genera. 



SOURCES OF MATERIAL 



Collections of cat sharks made by the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries exploratory fishing vessels, 



Note. — Approved for publication July 9, 1965. 



Oregon, Silver Bay, and Combat, are the princi- 

 pal source of material for this report. Studies of 

 these collections were supplemented by examina- 

 tion of the relatively small numbers of cat sharks 

 in the U.S. National Museum, the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, and the 

 Natural History Museum of Stanford University. 

 An important series of Apristuri/~s in the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology collected by the CajPn 

 Bill II, a fishing vessel chartered by the Woods 

 Hole Oceanographic Institution, was examined. 

 For purposes of comparison, an excellent series of 

 the Pacific species, Aprisherus brunnev-9 (Gilbert) 

 was assembled from specimens collected from the 

 research vessels of the University of Washington 

 College of Fisheries and by the exploratory vessel 

 John N. Cobb of the Bureau of Commercial Fish- 

 eries. Similarly a young example of Cephalo- 

 scyTlivmb uter (Jordan and Gilbert) and also a 

 series of the Pacific cat shark Parmaturus xanmrus 

 (Gilbert) were obtained for comparison with At- 

 lantic scyliorhinids from collections made by the 

 research vessel N. B. Scofield of the California 

 Department of Fish and (Tame. The type of 

 Scylliv/m laurusmnii Saemundsson was loaned by 

 the Natural History Museum, Reykjavik. Iceland, 

 for examination. 



FISHERY BULLETIN! VOLUME 65, NO. 3 



581 



