4-88 Alemoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



Range. Both sides of North Atlantic, Mediterranean, South Africa, Straits of Magel- 

 lan, southwest coast of South America, East Indies, Philippines, Japan and Hawaiian 

 Islands. 



Fossil Teeth. Upper Cretaceous (?) and Miocene, Europe. 



Species. The ten or eleven supposed species of these small, deeply pigmented deep 

 water sharks that have been named^ resemble one another so very closely that a drastic 

 reduction in the number of recognizable species is to be anticipated. But since we lack 

 adequate material from other ocean areas for comparison we limit the accompanying Key 

 to the North Atlantic representatives of the genus. 



Key to North Atlantic Species 



la. Interspace between rear end of bases of pelvics and origin of caudal as long as distance 



from origin of pelvics to tips of pectorals, or longer. hillianiis Poey, i86r, p. 488. 



lb. Interspace between rear end of bases of pelvics and origin of caudal considerably 



shorter than distance from origin of pelvics to tips of pectorals. 



2a. Dermal denticles bristle- or thorn-like; caudal a little longer than from tip of 



snout to origin of pectorals. j/)i«^.v Linnaeus, 1758.* 



Eastern Atlantic, Mediterra- 

 nean, South Africa. 

 2b. Dermal denticles scale-like 5 caudal considerably shorter than from tip of snout 

 to origin of pectorals. fusillus Lowe, 1839. 



Eastern Atlantic, also Ja- 

 pan, or represented there 

 by a very close ally." 



Etmopterus hillianus (Poey), 1861 



Figures 92, 93 



Study Material. Type specimen, 269 mm. long, from Cuba (Harv. Mus. Comp. 

 ZooL, No. 1025); males, 251 and 270 mm. long, from off St. Kitts, West Indies in 208 



3. Brac/iyurus Smith and Radcliffe, 1912, Philippines; front'unaculatus Pietschmann, 1907, Japan; granulosus Gun- 

 ther, 1880, southwest coast of South America; /nltianus Poey, 1861, western North Atlantic, Florida region; 

 lucifer Jordan and Snyder, 1902, Japan, Philippines, East Indies, Natal; tnolleri Whitley, 1939, Australia; -paess- 

 leri Lonnberg, 1907, Straits of Magellan, Argentina; frinceps Collett, 1904, vicinity of the Faroes (almost cer- 

 tainly a synonym of sfhutx) ; fusillus Lowe, 1839, eastern Atlantic; villosus Gilbert, 1905, Hawaiian Islands; 

 and sfinax Linnaeus, 1758, eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean, South Africa. 



4. Including frlnceps Collett, 1904. This was thought by Collett (Forh. Vidensk.-Selsk. Krist., 9, 1904: 3) to be 

 separable from sfinax because of its somewhat stouter and more thorn-like denticles; but we doubt the validity of 

 this supposed species, based on poorly preserved material. 



5. The forms described under this name by Tanaka (Fish. Japan, 5, 1912: pi. 22; 6, 1912: 88) and as E. frontima- 

 culatus by Pietschmann (Anz. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 44, 1907: 395; S. B. Akad. Wiss. Wien, 117, 1908: 654, pi. 1, 

 fig. 2, pi. 2, fig. 2), both from Japan, agree with the East Atlantic fusillus in the form of the denticles. Whether 

 or not they are actually identical with the latter, as classed by Garman (Mem. Harv. Mus. comp. Zool., 36, 1913 : 

 228) and Fowler (liuU. U.S. nat. Mus., 100 [rj], 1941: 249), can be determined only by comparison of speci- 

 mens from the respective ocean areas. 



