FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



53 



Figure 20. — Portuguese shark (Centroscymnus coelolepis), female about 42)4 inches long, off Banquereau Bank. A, 

 upper teeth, and B, lower teeth from center of mouth, about 3.4 times natural size. From Bigelow and Schroeder. 

 Drawings by E. N. Fischer. 



Size. — Adults measure from 3 to VA feet long, 

 as they are caught. Garman records one 44 

 inches long taken off the coast of New England. 

 About 9 inches is the smallest recorded. 3 ' 



Habits. — Little is known of its habits beyond 

 the fact that it is a deep-water species, and that it 

 was caught regularly by Portuguese fishermen 

 with hand lines, a fishery that Wright 40 described 

 as follows: 



Some GOO fathoms of rope were let out, the first 30 or 

 40 fathoms of which had fastened to it at intervals of a 

 fathom a series of small ropes, on each of which was a large 

 hook baited with a codling. This fishing tackle remained 

 below for about two hours, when they commenced to haul 

 it in. When it arrived at the last few fathoms, they pulled 

 in, one after another, five or six specimens from 3 to 4 feet 

 long. The species was the Centroscymnus coelolepis 



Bocage and Capello. These sharks, as they were haulfd 

 into the boat, fell down into it like so many dead pigs. 



Thirteen to 16 young have been found in fe- 

 males caught off Portugal. 



General range. — This deep-water shark, origi- 

 nally discovered off Portugal, has since been taken 

 at various other eastern Atlantic localities. 41 Defi- 

 nite records of it for the western Atlantic arc from 

 the slopes of the Nova Scotian Banks and of 

 Georges, at depths of 180 to 250 fathoms, perhaps 

 15 to 20 specimens in all. But Goode and Bean's* 2 

 old characterization of them as abundant on the 

 Banks at 200 fathoms and deeper presents its local 

 status more correctly, for fishermen long lining 

 for halibut often caught one or two a trip in the 

 deeper gullies between the offshore Banks. 



THE GURRY SHARKS. FAMILY DALATIIDAE 



The gurry sharks, like the spiny dogfishes, lack 

 anal fins, but they have no spines in their dorsal 

 fins. The teeth in the upper jaw are noticeably 

 unlike those in the lower. 



Greenland shark Somniosus microcephalus (Bloch 

 and Schneider) 1801 



Sleeper shark; Gurry shark; Ground shark 



Bigelow and Schroeder, 1948, p. 516. 

 Garman, 1913, pi. 15, figs. 4-6. 



Description. — The Greenland shark is notable 



n A male 228 ram. long, examined by us, in the U. S. National Museum 

 from the continental edge south of Nantucket. 

 <• Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 4, vol. 2, 1868, p. 426. 



for its small dorsal fins, without spines, the second 

 dorsal being of about the same size as the first, 

 and for small pectorals hardly larger than the 

 pclvics, coupled with the absence of an anal fin 

 and with a tail of more fish-like form than that of 

 most other sharks except for the mackerel-shark 

 tribe. Bearing these points in mind, particularly 

 the absence of an anal fin and of dorsal spines, it 

 cannot be confused with any shark common in 

 our Gulf. And while it resembles the rare 

 Portuguese shark in the sizes and relative situa- 



« Iceland; Faroe Bank; Madeira; Azores; Morocco; Cape Verde I.: For key 

 to other species of the genus, see Bigelow and Schroeder, Fishes Western 

 North Atlantic, P. 1, 1948, p. 494. 



« Smithsonian Contrib. Knowledge, vol. 30, 1895, p. 14. 



