FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



55 



tremely rapacious. It devours any carrion ea- 

 gerly, such as whale meat, blubber from whaling 

 operations, or the carcasses of young seals that 

 are left on the ice off the Newfoundland-Labrador 

 coasts. And its habit of gathering when there 

 has been a big killing of narwhals in Greenland 

 waters is proverbial. Apart from carrion (which 

 cannot be available except on rare occasions), its 

 diet includes a wide variety of fishes, large and 

 small. Seals are a favorite food, and in view of 

 its sluggishness, it is somewhat astonishing that 

 it should be able to capture prey as active as seals, 

 halibut, and salmon. The specimen from Cape 

 Cod Bay, mentioned above, contained half a dozen 

 flounders and a large piece (with hide and hair) 

 that had been bitten out of the side of a seal. It 

 is also known to eat crabs, large snails, even 

 medusae. Objects as large as an entire reindeer 

 (without horns), a whole seal, a 3-foot cod, and a 

 39-inch salmon, found in Greenland shark 

 stomachs, give some measure of their appetite. 

 In line with this, they will bite on any fish or meat 

 bait, the more putrid and ill smelling the better. 



Large numbers of soft eggs, without horny cap- 

 sules, ranging in size up to that of a goose egg, 

 have been found repeatedly in female Greenland 

 sharks, but never any embryos, suggesting that 

 this may be an egg-laying species. 46 



General range. — Northern Atlantic, from Polar 

 latitudes south to the North Sea and accidentally 

 to the mouth of the Seine and perhaps to Portugal 

 in the east; south regularly to Newfoundland and 

 the northern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 

 the west, and less commonly to the Gulf of Maine. 

 It is represented in the Mediterranean region, in 

 the North Pacific, and in the sub-Antarctic by 

 forms that appear to be distinct, though closely 

 allied to it. 47 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Although there 

 is no reason to suppose that the Greenland shark 

 ever appears in our Gulf save as a straggler from 

 the north, its presence there has been signalized 

 on a number of occasions. Two specimens, for 

 example, were taken in the neighborhood of St. 

 Andrews in 1915 (one caught in a weir and the 

 other on a long line). It has been reported off 

 Eastport ; off Cape Elizabeth whence 6 were landed 



*• The Mediterranean Somniosut Tostratus, on the contrary, bears living 

 young. 



* 7 For recent discussion of the species of Somniosus, see Bigelow and 

 Schroeder. Fishes Western North Atlantic, Pt. 1, 1948, p. 515. 



at Portland between 1925 and 1948; 48 on Jeffreys 

 Ledge, where one of about 15 feet was caught on 

 a long line, on February 16, 1931 ; 40 near Cape 

 Ann; off Marblehead and Nahant; in Massachu- 

 setts Bay; off Barnstable in Cape Cod Bay; at 

 Provincetown ; and in Cape Cod Bay off the en- 

 trance to the Cape Cod Canal, where one between 

 10 and 11 feet long was taken by a trawler in 

 April 1924, landed in Boston and identified by us. 



Recorded captures in the Gulf include small 

 specimens as well as large, and have been for all 

 four seasons of the year, suggesting that when a 

 Greenland shark does stray southward to the 

 Gulf, it may survive there for years. The local 

 records are distributed so widely as to show that 

 an odd specimen is to be expected anywhere in 

 the deeper parts of the Gulf. And rumor has it 

 that they were more numerous in our waters in 

 early colonial times when Atlantic right whales 

 were still being killed in numbers off the Massa- 

 chusetts coast. 60 



Commercial importance.- — This shark is not plen- 

 tiful enough in our Gulf to be even of potential 

 value. But it has long supported a fishery off 

 northern Norway, around Iceland, and in West 

 Greenland waters, chiefly for its liver oil. 61 In 

 Greenland the flesh is dried also for dog food, and 

 to a small extent in Iceland for human consump- 

 tion. But it produces an intoxicant poisoning if 

 eaten fresh, though it is wholesome if dried. 62 



Dalatias licha (Bonnaterre) 1788 



Bigelow and Schroeder, 1948, p. 502. 



Description. — This shark resembles the Portu- 

 guese shark in the relative sizes and positions of 

 its fins; also in its scales. But its dorsal fins do 

 not have any trace of spines, while the serrate 

 margins of its lower teeth, in combination with 

 their triangular shape, mark it off from any other 

 shark without an anal fin that is known yet from 

 the North Atlantic. Its trunk is rather slender, 

 its snout short and bluntly rounded, and the 

 lower-anterior corner of its tail fin is not expanded 

 as a definite lobe. Its upper teeth are slender, awl- 



" Reported to us by the late W. W. Rich. 



19 This one was landed in Boston, where we saw it. 



» When they gather to feed on whale, narwhal, and seal carcasses in their 

 northern home, they may linger for a long time in the vicinity. 



" The annual catch off West Greenland was around 32,000 during the first 

 decade of the present century. 



M For accounts, see Jensen, 1914 (Selachians of Greenland, Mlndesk. 

 Jap. Steenstrup, vol. 2, No. 30, 1914, p. 12); also Clark (Science, N. Ser., 

 vol.41, 1915, p. 795). 



