314 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



Range. Littoral, in the western Atlantic, northern Brazil to North Carolina, and acci- 

 dentally to New Jersey 5 also reported from tropical West Africa." 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. This is one of the more plentiful of the larger 

 sharks along the Florida Keys and on the southern and southwestern coast of Florida, 

 where it constitutes a considerable portion of the catches of the shark fishery. And it is com- 

 mon along the west coast of Florida, at least as far north as Tampa and Pensacola. In all 

 probability its center of abundance covers the West Indian— Caribbean region as a whole, 

 and the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico, although definite records of it there are con- 

 fined to the Bahamas,' Cuba, Jamaica,' and the Atlantic coast of Panama. 



To the northward its presence has been established recently off Mississippi in July,* 

 and it ranges in the summer not uncommonly as far as South Carolina and the southern 

 part of North Carolina. But it appears that few pass the latitude of Cape Hatteras, unless 

 perhaps they enter the warm enclosed waters of Pamlico Sound, for the only record of it 

 further north is of a single large specimen from Beach Haven, New Jersey, in July 1919. 

 Present indications are that its range is equally circumscribed in the opposite direction, the 

 only South American records for it being of a very small specimen from Para in northern 

 Brazil, and another from fresh water of some unspecified Brazilian locality. 



SynonjTns and References: 



Hyfofrion brevirostris Poey, Repert. Fisico-Nat. Cuba, 2, 1868: 451, pi. 4, fig. 5, 6, 20 (descr., teeth, 

 Cuba) ; An. Soc. esp. Hist, nat., 5, 1876: 394; Enumerat. Pise. Cubens., 1876: 198 (Cuba) ; Goode and 

 Bean, Proc. U.S. nat. Mus., 2, 1879: 156 (W. Florida); Jordan and Gilbert, Proc. U.S. nat. Mus., 

 5, 1882: 581 (descr., color, S. Carolina); Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 16, 1883: 61 (W. Indies, Gulf coast 

 of U.S.); Goode and Bean, Proc. U.S. nat. Mus., 5, 1883: 240 (Gulf of Mexico); Jordan and 

 Evermann, Rep. U.S. Comm. Fish. (1895), 1896: 217 (W. Indies to S. Carolina); Bull. U.S. 

 nat. Mus., 47 (i), 1896: 41 (descr., W. Indies to S. Carolina); Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 47 (4), 

 1900: pi. 5, fig. 18 (ill.); Evermann and Kendall, Rep. U.S. Comm. Fish. (1899), 1900: 48 

 (Florida); Bean, B. A., in Shattuck, Bahama Islands, Fish., 1 905: 296 (Bahamas); Rosen, Lunds Univ, 

 Arsberatt., (7) 2 (5), 191 1: 47 (Watlings I.); Garman, Mem. Mus. comp. Zool. Harv., 37, 1913: 120 

 (descr., Pensacola, Florida) ; Gudger, Science, N. S. 57, 1 91 3 : 993 (Key West, Florida) ; Starks, Stanford 

 Univ. Publ., Univ. Ser., 1913: 5 (Para, Brazil); Gudger, Yearb. Carneg. Instn. (1913), 12, 1914: 177 

 (Tortugas, Florida); Yearb. Carneg. Instn. (1914), 13, 1915: 204 (Tortugas, Florida); Science, N. S. 

 41, 1915: 437 (anat.. Key West, Florida); Coles, Proc. biol. Soc. Wash., 28, 1915: 90 (N. Carolina); 

 Radcliffe, Bull. U.S. Bur. Fish., 34, 1916: 253, pi. 39, fig. I (meas., descr., N. Carolina) ; Nichols, Bull. 

 Amer. Mus. nat. Hist., 57, 1917: 875 (Florida); Fowler, Proc. Acad. nat. Sci. Philad., 72, 1921: 386 

 (size, weight, Beach Haven, N. Jersey); Meek and Hildebrand, Field Mus. Publ. Zool., 75, 1923: 50 

 (descr., Atlant.) ; Borodin, Bull. Vanderbilt Oceanogr. (Mar.) Mus., i (l), 1928: 5 (Florida); Breder, 

 Field Bk. Mar. Fish. Atlant. Coast, 1929: 18 (general); Gudger, Publ. Carneg. Instn., 391, 1929: 200 

 (food, Tortugas, Florida) ; Jordan, Evermann and Clark, Rep. U.S. Comm. Fish. (1928), 2, 1930: 17 

 (distrib.) ; Gudger, Sci. Mon. N. Y., 34, 1932: 409 (sting-ray spine in jaw, west coast, Florida) ; Breder, 

 Zoologica, N. Y., 18, 1934: 59 (W. Indies, Bahamas); Brooks, Parasitology, 26, 1934: 260 (Tortugas, 



5. Budker, Bull. Mus. Hist. nat. Paris, (2) 7, 1935: 185. The collection of the Harvard Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology also contains a female of 872 mm. received in 1864 and catalogued as from the Kingsmill Islands. 

 But we hesitate to include the West Pacific in the range of the species, in view of the possibility that the speci- 

 men may not have come from the stated locality. 



6. There is a specimen from Watlings Island in the United States National Museum (No. 38497). 



7. Personal communication from Luis Howell-Rivero. 8. Personal communication from Stewart Springer. 



