Author: Gill, 1862
Diagnostic Features:
Snout short and somewhat flattened; eyes small; three rows of large upper anterior teeth and usually no symphyseal teeth on each side of symphysis; posterior teeth well differentiated from lateral teeth, with cusps and cusplets reduced or absent, molariform. First dorsal base closer to pelvic bases than to pectoral bases, with its origin well behind inner margins of pectorals and its insertion about over pelvic origins; second dorsal fin about as large as first dorsal; anal fin about as large or slightly larger than dorsal fins and with its origin unfer midbase of second dorsal.
Remarks:
Work on the cranial, vertebral, dental, and external morphology of odontaspids revealed that members of the taurus species group in Carcharias or Odontaspis are generically separable from the ferox group, which comprises the genus Odontaspis sensu stricto. The oldest genus-group names for the taurus group were Carcharias Rafinesque, 1810 and Triglochis Müller and Henle, 1837, but these were rejected by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1965), following an argument by White, Tucker and Marshall (1961). In regards to Carcharias Rafinesque, 1810, White, Tucker and Marshall (1961) reason-that because the genus Odontaspis Agassiz, 1838 has been used far more frequently in the literature for odontaspidids (especially fossils) than Carcharias, Carcharias should be suppressed. A key point to these author's reasoning is that "...since the respective nominal type species of Carcharias Rafinesque, 1810, and Odontaspis J.L.R. Agassiz, 1838, are congeneric, it is the latter name which is threatened by the former" (emphasis added). However, subsequent work indicates that the two type species, taurus and ferox, are not congeneric, and, provided two genera of living odonstaspidids are recognized, Odontaspis is not threatened by Carcharias. In lieu of a reversal of Opinion 723.5a by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature to reinstate the genus Carcharias Rafinesque, 1810, the next valid genusgroup name for the taurus group is Eugomphodus Gill, 1862, which is used here and elsewhere (Compagno, 1977, Welton and Zinsmeister, 1980).