Selachians Extraordinary 



285 



and several other rivers of Africa. One Australian species (P. leichhardti 

 Whitley, 1945) is said to be found primarily in rivers rather than in salt 

 water. 



Family Squatinidae— Angel Sharks 

 A gaudy, flat-bodied shark with an ecclesiastical history, the Angel 

 shark seems to be a shark which is morphologically on its way toward 

 becoming a Batoid. If you can imagine a long line of various species 

 of sharks gradually tending toward the flattened form of the skates 

 and rays, the last one in the Une would be the Angel shark. It is still 

 a shark, but it appears close to losing its shark credentials and being 

 transferred to Batoid ranks. 



It is classified as a shark for several anatomical reasons, which include: 

 its pectoral fins are not attached to its head; its gill slits are not wholly 

 on the underside of its body, but curve upward to the sides of its neck; 

 its sharklike eyelids are free (the upper eyeHds of Batoids are not free). 



Pious medieval observers of this shark's outline saw its pectorals as 

 wings and its tapering body and tail as angelic robes. They named it an 

 Angel. Later, it became a Monk. And finally it was dubbed a Bishop. 

 (An Australian species, ornately dappled with denticles, managed to be- 

 come an Archbishop.) Writing about this "blessed" shark in 1558, the 

 early ichthyologist Rondelet imaginatively reported: 



In our time in Norway a sea-monster has been taken after a great storm, to 

 which all who saw it at once gave the name of monk, for it had a man's face. 



#'/ 



An Angel shark {Squatina calif ornica) . 



Courtesy, Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 



