Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 361 



of New Zealand seas, a species only remotely resembling the Atlantic longimanus. Twelve 

 out of 1 3 other western Pacific-Indian Ocean species included by Fowler" in the synonymy 

 of his Eulamia lamia equally fail to show the combination of characters most distinctive of 

 longimanus, at least if the published accounts of them are to be relied upon. The several 

 species of Carcharhinus that occur along the Pacific coast of Central America are also clearly 

 separable from longimanus by one character or another."* Although insularum Snyder, 

 1904,°° from the Hawaiian Islands, does resemble longimanus in the roundness of its first 

 dorsal, in the close proximity of the tip of its anal to the origin of the caudal, and in its 

 teeth (particularly in the serration of the lowers), its pectoral appears to be definitely 

 much shorter than that of longimanus." 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. Definite information as to the actual frequency 

 of occurrence of this species in the western Atlantic is astonishingly scant, partly because 

 it is so seldom encountered in continental waters there, but equally because it has been 

 confused so often with C. leucas, and perhaps with C. obscurus also. The only reports of it 

 there that include evidence as to their actual identity are for: Uruguay; the Island of South 

 Trinidad (Lat. 20° 30' S., Long. 29° 23' W.) off southern Brazil; northern Brazil 

 south to Rio de Janeiro; Santa Cruz, Dominica and Guadeloupe, West Indies; off the 

 north and south coasts of Cuba; three stations off Florida north of the Bahama Bank («.<?., 

 seaward of the Gulf Stream) ; and the Caribbean in general. But the wide distribution 

 of these localities proves it to be generally distributed in the western side of the tropical 

 Atlantic. And the fact that we counted 28 and caught one on an occasion from the research 

 ship "Atlantis" off the north coast of Cuba in May of 1 939 is in line with earlier characteri- 

 zations of it as abundant in the Caribbean-West Indian region, and with reports to us of 

 "White-finned" sharks being seen there very often. The scanty information available 

 suggests that it is also common offshore around Bermuda but not inshore. 



We find no reliable record of it for the coast of Florida"* or for anywhere else on the 

 east coast of the United States farther north, which is in agreement with its oceanic nature. 

 But a school"" of large sharks, apparently of this species, was encountered at the surface 

 over the continental slope by the research vessel "Atlantis" on one occasion in June 1941 

 in the offing of southern New England (about Lat. 39° 30' N., Long. 70° 30' W., see 

 P- 3 59) J suggesting that the transition-band between oceanic and continental waters is its 

 normal boundary in the western Atlantic north of tropical latitudes. 



copied from the one by Jordan and Evermann (Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 47 [4], 1900: pi. 5, fig. 17) of an em- 

 bryo, probably of C. leucas i see also footnote 58, p. 359. 



64. Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 100 (xj), 1941 : 169. 



65. For the most recent survey of these, see Beebe and Tee-Van, Zoologica, N. Y., 26, 1941 : 106. 



66. Bull. U.S. Bur. Fish, s2, 1904: 513, pi. i, fig. i, Carcharias insularum. 



67. Pectoral only 80 per cent of length of head to origin of pectoral in adult insularum, and 83 per cent of length 

 of head in embryo, whereas in longimanus it is about as long as the head or longer. 



68. It is not included in the most recent survey of the sharks of Florida (Springer, Proc. Fla. Acad. Sci., 5, 1939: 

 9-41) ; an earlier characterization of it by Jordan (Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 7, 1884: 104) as plentiful there seems 

 actually to have referred to C. leucas; see footnote 58, p. 359; jaws from two Florida localities were re- 

 ported by Fowler (Proc. Acad. nat. Sci. Philad., 60, 1908: 65) as only "probably" this species. 



69. Described as "several hundred." 



