84 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



bottom by day, visiting the upper waters at night in search of food.'' High temperatures 

 probably act as a barrier to it toward the surface and inshore in the warmer part of its range, 

 as in the Mediterranean and around Cuba. 



The Six-gilled Shark was long ago reported as mating in spring and autumn and pro- 

 ducing young at various seasons, but on how good evidence we cannot say. 



Their food consists of fish and various crustaceans. In Spanish waters it feeds largely 

 on hake (Merluccius) ; an entire torpedo has also been found in one. Off Cuba, dolphins 

 (Coryphaena), small marlins (Makaira) and small swordfish (XipMas) are reported 

 from stomachs, as well as crabs, shrimps and parts bitten from other sharks that had been 

 hooked.'" They are described as coming to the surface on occasion to pick up fish thrown 

 overboard. 



Relation to Man. This species is not sufficiently abundant in American waters to be of 

 any special importance, although such as are taken off Cuba are utilized for their oil. In 

 the North Sea, any that are caught are marketable in Germany, even though the flesh has 

 been credited with a purgative action. However, along the Iberian Peninsula, and in the 

 Mediterranean, where it is much more plentiful, it is of no commercial importance, except 

 as a nuisance to fishermen, since it drives away merchantable fishes. 



Range. Continental waters on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Mediterra- 

 nean} also Pacific coast of North America from southern California to British Columbia} 

 Chile; Japan; Australia; southern Indian Ocean and South Africa. 



Occurrence in the North Atlantic. On the eastern side of the Atlantic, although no- 

 where abundant, the center of population for this Shark appears to be in the Mediter- 

 ranean, where it is widespread, and thence northward along the Atlantic coasts of the 

 Iberian peninsula and France. It also enters the North Sea in numbers sufficient for fisher- 

 men to be familiar with it; it is taken from time to time on the south coast of England, 

 along the Irish Atlantic slope, off western Scotland to the Faroe-Shetland Channel, and 

 even as a stray off Iceland. To the southward it has been reported from Morocco to Mauri- 

 tania. 



Occurrence in the Western North Atlantic. It has long been known that the Six-gilled 

 Shark occurs off the northern coast of Cuba, specimens being caught from time to time near 

 Matanzas and Havana, and since the recent development of a hook and line fishery at lOO 

 to 400 fathoms or deeper it has proved to be more plentiful there in deep water than was 

 formerly supposed, large specimens being taken daily."" However, for it to stray north- 

 ward must be a very rare event, the only record of its occurrence on the east coast of con- 

 tinental North America being a ten-foot two-inch specimen taken in March 1886 on the 

 coast of North Carolina near Currituck Lighthouse. Neither is there any evidence of its 

 presence anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean region, other than for Cuba. 

 But it is to be expected there, at appropriate depths, and along the coast of South America 

 generally, if a report of it from northern Argentina be well founded.'' 



18. Fraser-Brunner, Proc. R. Irish Acad., 42, B-9, 1935: 519. 



19. Communication from Luis Howell-Rivero. zo. Communication from Luis Howell-Rivero. 

 21. Lahille, An. IVIus. nac. B. Aires, 24, 1913: 26, 32 (identified by the teeth). 



