Author: Müller and Henle, 1841
Field Marks:
Greyish or blackish-brown, no anal fin, well-developed dorsal fin spines, short to moderately long snout, comblike teeth with cusps and cusplets in both jaws.
Diagnostic Features:
Anterior nasal flaps short, not expanded as barbels; snout flattened, truncatedparabolic to slightly pointed, short to moderately long, length less than distance from mouth to pectoral origins and less than half length of head; gill opening small to moderately broad about equally wide or increasing very slightly in width posteriorly; lips thin, not pleated or suctorial; teeth alike in upper and lower jaws, with slender cusps and prominent cusplets not bladelike; tooth rows 45 to 68 in either jaw. Strong, grooved finspines present on both dorsal fins, the second dorsal spine strikingly larger than the first; first dorsal origin over or somewhat behind pectoral inner margins, insertion well in front of pelvic origins but varying from closer to the pectoral bases to closer to the pelvic bases; second dorsal origin varying from over first half of pelvic bases to about over pelvic free rear tips; second dorsal larger than first, its base less than twice length of first dorsal base; pectoral fins with short, broadly rounded free rear tips and inner margins, not broadly lobate or acute and attenuated; caudal fin asymmetrical, not paddle-shaped, upper lobe long, lower lobe weakly differentiated, subterminal notch present and strong. Caudal peduncle without precaudal pits or lateral keels. Dermal denticles with slender, acute, erect, narrow ridged cusps and stellate bases. Cloaca without a luminous gland. Colour greyish to blackish brown above and below.
Remarks:
Bigelow and Schroeder (1957) recognized five species of this poorly known genus, C. fabricii, C. granulatum,.C. nigrum, C. ornatum, and C. ritteri, to which Abe (1966) added a sixth new species, C. kamoharai. Recently Nakaya (in Okamura et al., 19825;irted that there were two species of Centroscyllium from the Kyushu-Palau Ridge near Japan, which could not be placed in existing species. At least one of these species a slender, Etmopterus-like, long-nosed shark, is almost certainly new, and the other, a very heavy-bodied, short nosed species, may very well be new also.