The Sharks-Fart One 297 



roneously called Sand sharks. The mix-up is further complicated by the 

 fact that some fishermen know the Sand shark itself as the "Shovel-Nose 

 shark" or the "Dogfish shark." 



The name "Spanish shark," still another befuddling name for the 

 Sand shark, comes from the absurd notion that this shark of many 

 names was originally a tropical shark driven into temperate waters by 

 the cannonading during the Spanish American war! [Spanish was a 

 popular adjective with old-time seafarers who associated many things 

 that were strange and southern with the idea that they stemmed from 

 the Spanish-dominated tropics. Thus they derived Spanish moss, Spanish 

 oak, Spanish mackerel and Spanish (yellow) fever.] 



The Sand shark's upper body is light gray-brown, darkest along its 

 back, snout, and upper sides of its pectoral fins, paling on its sides. Its 

 belly is grayish white. It has many roundish or oval yellow-brown spots 

 on its sides. No shark with which it could be confused has spots of this 

 particular nature. 



Sand sharks are found on both sides of the Atlantic. On the east, it 

 is known in the Mediterranean, off tropical West Africa, around the 

 Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and off West and South Africa. In the 

 western Atlantic, it ranges from the Gulf of Maine to Florida and southern 

 Brazil. 



The Sand shark family has only one recognized genus, Carcharias. 

 The various species, known— and usually feared— throughout the world 

 may be merely variations on one world-wide species. In addition to C. 

 arenarms and C. taurus, these other species include the Blue Nurse (C. 

 tricuspidatus Day, 1888) of Indian, Chinese, and South African waters, 

 and the common shark of Japanese coastal waters (C. oivstoni Garman, 

 1913). 



Family Scapanorhynchidae—GoBi.i'N Shark 

 When the weird-looking Goblin shark was found in Japanese waters 

 and first described in the western world in 1898 by David Starr Jordan, 

 president of Leland Stanford University, it was regarded by astonished 

 scientists as a discovery comparable to the capture of a prehistoric 

 Ichthyosaur which had somehow appeared in modern seas. 



A Goblin shark (Scapanorhynchus oivstoni). 



Courtesy, American Miiseiini of Natural History 



