Author: Bocage and Capello, 1864
Field Marks:
No anal fin, two dorsal fins with large spines, bladelike unicuspidate teeth in upper and lower jaws, with lowers much larger than uppers, a moderately long and broad snout, very long first dorsal fin and high second dorsal, blocklike, sessile-crowned, wide-spaced, cuspidate lateral denticles, and rear tips of pectoral fins narrowly angular and strongly extended.
Diagnostic Features:
Snout moderately long, broadly parabolic, preoral snout equal or somewhat greater than mouth width but shorter than distance from mouth to pectoral origins; upper anterolateral teeth with semioblique or oblique cusps. First dorsal fin very low and long; second dorsal moderately large, nearly as high or slightly higher than first, with base about 1/2 to 3/5 length of first dorsal base, and spine origin over inner margins of pelvic fins; distance from first dorsal insertion to origin of second dorsal spine about as long as tip of snout to pectoral midbases in adults and subadults; free rear tips of pectoral fins formed into narrow, angular and elongated lobes that reach well beyond the level of first dorsal spine, inner margins slightly shorter than distance from second dorsal spine to caudal origin; caudal fin with a shallowly concave to weakly notched posterior margin in adults and subadults. Lateral trunk denticles not overlapping each other, blocklike, with crowns sessile on bases and without pedicels, crowns elongated and longitudinally rhomboidal in adults, with a strong main cusp and no lateral cusps on their posterior edges in adults.
Geographical Distribution:
Eastern North Atlantic: Portugal, Senegal, Ivory Coast to Nigeria. Western Indian Ocean: South Africa and Mozambique Channel. Western Pacific: Taiwan Island.
Habitat and Biology:
A large deepwater dogfish of the outer continental shelves and upper slopes at depths between 300 to 1400 m. Ovoviviparous, number of young 1 to 6 per litter. Eats bony fishes, squid, small dogfish sharks, and lobsters.
Size:
Adults reach at least 160 cm; adult males from 72 to 128 cm and females from 88 to 144 cm; size at birth about 36 cm.
Interest to Fisheries:
Primarily utilized in the eastern Atlantic, and captured there in bottom trawls and with fixed bottom nets and line gear. Dried and salted for human consumption, and processed for fishmeal. Fished also off Taiwan Island, Province of China.
Remarks:
The writer examined the above-mentioned syntype in the British Museum (Natural History). Centrophorus ferrugineus of Chu et al., (1982) is a recently described dogfish from the South China Sea that may be identical to the present species. C. lusitanicus itself has been described from Taiwan Island (Teng, 1962).
Type material:
Holotype: A possible syntype in British Museum (Natural History), BMNH 1867.7.23.2, 75 cm immature male; other type material probably lost. Type Locality: Portugal, Atlantic Ocean.