354 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



Carcharhinus longimaivus (Poey), 1861" 



White-tipped Shark 



Figures 64, 6$ 



Study Material. Adult male, about 6 feet 9 inches long, taken ofiF Guantanamo, 

 Cuba, in April 1939; adult female of about the same length, taken off Santa Clara 

 Province on the north coast of Cuba in May 1939, the latter specimen with 6 female em- 

 bryos, 550 to 580 mm. long and nearly ready for birth 5" jaws from Guadeloupe and 

 Santa Cruz, West Indies, specimens} jaws from six specimens, with pieces of skin from 

 two of these, up to 6V2 to 7 feet long by calculation, caught from the research ship "At- 

 lantis" in the Caribbean (precise localities not recorded) in February 1934; also the fol- 

 lowing embryos: a male, said to have been one of 9 embryos, from north of the Bahamas 

 in Lat. 28° 30' N., Long. 77° 35' W. (Harv. Mus. Comp. ZooL, No. 35249) ; two males, 

 395 and 460 mm., from Guadeloupe, West Indies (Harv. Mus. Comp. ZooL, No. 756"') ; 

 female of about 580 mm., from off Havana, Cuba (Harv. Mus. Comp. ZooL, No. 33439) } 

 four others, female and male, about 515 to 525 mm. long, from north of the Bahamas 

 (U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 1 18548, 11 8549)} also photographs of unpublished drawings by 

 Poey. 



Distinctive Characters. C. longimanus is set apart from all other Atlantic members 

 of the genus by the very broadly rounded apex of its first dorsal fin, the convexity of the 

 posterior outline of the lower caudal lobe, its very short snout in front of the nostrils 

 {leucas alone resembles it in this respect) and by the fact that the rear tip of the anal reaches 

 nearly to the lower precaudal pit (see also comparison with C. leucas, p. 338). 



Description. Proportional dimensions in per cent of total length. Female, 2,070 



51. In early shark literature this species was almost inextricably entangled with the man-eater now universally 

 known as Carcharodon, while more recently it has been confused frequently with Carcharhinus leucas. Thus it 

 appears to have been combined with Carcharodon by Linnaeus, 1758, under the name Squalus carcharias, and 

 clearly was so combined by Risso (Ichthyol. Nice, 1810: 25). But this specific name is not available for it, 

 because S. carcharias Linnaeus is now universally accepted as the type of Carcharodon. In 1826 Risso (Hist. Nat. 

 Europ. Merid., j: 119) redescribed it as Carcharias lamia, this time omitting: such of the features as obviously 

 referred to Carcharodon in his earlier account. It was as Carcharias (Prionodon) lamia that Muller and 

 Henle (Plagiost., 1841 : 37, pi. 12) published what has continued to be the best account and illustration of it up 

 to the present time. But the name Carcharias lamia had been used previously by Rafinesque (Indice Ittiol. 

 Sicil., 18 10: 44) as a substitute for Squalus carc/mrias Linnaeus, the White Shark; hence it is a synonym of the 

 latter, according to the rules of zoological nomenclature as generally accepted, and cannot be used for any other 

 shark. To replace it for the species here under discussion we must therefore turn to the next oldest name under 

 which the latter has been cited, «.«., to longimanus Poey, 1861. Fortunately there can be no doubt as to the iden- 

 tity of the shark so named by him; his account and the photographs of his unpublished drawings specify the 

 short, broad snout, the rounded first dorsal, the very long pectorals, the close proximity of the tip of the anal to 

 the origin of the caudal, and the teeth of the specimen pictured here reproduce almost exactly the one figured 

 by him. 



52. Measurements and photographs were taken of the latter; the jaws and fins, with the embryos, are in the Harvard 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



52a. Basis of Carman's (191 3) account of C. flatyodon. 



