•312 Shark and Company 



A Zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum). 



Courtesy, Central Fisheries Department of Pakistan 



feelers— a family characteristic of the Orectolobidae— grows around its 

 mouth. The largest Wobbegong (Orectolobus maculatus Bonnaterre, 

 1788) grows to IQi/s feet. 



The Nurse shark of American waters has similarly varied colors- 

 yellow to grayish brown, sprinkled with dark spots and sometimes dark 

 bars. It is found close to shore on both sides of the Atlantic in warm 

 waters. It is common around Cuba, Jamaica, and the Florida Keys. It 

 also lazes along Pacific shores from the Gulf of California to Panama and 

 Ecuador. It is sometimes called the Carpet shark. 



Another brilliantly colored member of the Orectolobidae family is 

 the Zebra shark {Stegostoma fasciatum), which grows to about 11 feet. 

 Unlike the Nurse shark, which is ovoviviparous and brings forth live 

 young, the Zebra shark is oviparous. Its oblong egg capsules are equipped 

 with bunches of tendrils that attach themselves to objects on the bottom, 

 thus keeping the capsule anchored while the embryo within it develops. 



Family* Rhincodontidae— Whale Shark 

 Until one April day in 1828 when some intrepid African fishermen 

 harpooned the largest fish they had ever seen, the Whale shark was a 

 phantom— occasionally seen and marveled at, frequently the subject of 

 sea-monster tales, but never caught and examined by a man of science. 

 The fishermen who brought in the first Whale shark known to modem 

 man first sighted it as an immense dorsal fin knifing the surface in Table 

 Bay, Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. They approached the giant 

 cautiously, but they learned to their astonishment that its size was not 

 a harbinger of ferocity. They harpooned it easily, and not until the 

 harpoon was in it did the colossal shark show any inclination toward 

 flight. 



Somehow, the native fishermen managed to get it to shore, where, 

 luckily. Dr. Andrew Smith, a surgeon to British troops in South Africa, 



* There is only one known representative of the family: Rhine odon typiis Smith, 

 1829. 



