24 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



THE EEL SHARKS. FAMILY CHLAMYDOSELACHID5: 

 3. Eel shark (CJtlamydoselachus anguineus Garman) 



Frilled shark; Snake shark; Sea serpent 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 16. 

 Garman, 1913, p. 14. 



Description. — The readiest field marks for this curious shark are the eel-like 

 form of its body and tail, the fish being about fifteen times as long as deep; the fact 

 that there is only one dorsal fin, situated far back over the anal but smaller than the 

 latter; that there are six gill openings on a side instead of five; and that the mouth 

 is more nearly terminal than in most sharks, with the snout hardly projecting 



Fio. i— Eel shark ( Chlamydosdachus anguineus). After Goode and Bean 



beyond it. The pectorals, it may be added, are relatively small; the ventrals are 

 larger and close in front of the anal. 



Size. — The few eel sharks so far recorded have been from 2 to 5 feet long. 



Color. — Uniform brown. 



General range. — Probably cosmopolitan in the deep waters of temperate and 

 tropical oceans. This shark has been taken, on several occasions, in Sagami Bay, 

 Japan; also off New South Wales, Madeira, and Norway. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — A curious eel-like fish found dead in a net 

 near Pemaquid Point, Me., in 1880 " may have been an eel shark, and this is its 

 only claim to mention here. It would not be surprising should it stray into our 

 Gulf along the trough of the basin from the open Atlantic, for it is as likely to live 

 off our coast as off any other, so widely separated are the localities of capture, hsted 

 above. 



" Described by Hanna (1383). 



