Author: Pietschmann, 1928
Field Marks:
No anal fin, dorsals spineless and far back, first behind pelvic origins; denticles relatively close-set and only moderately large, not formed as large, flat thorns.
Diagnostic Features:
Dermal denticles on body moderate-sized, close-set, and with relatively small, stellate bases, less than 5 mm in diameter; denticles not expanded into large bucklers or thorns, not fused together.
Geographical Distribution:
Western Pacific: Taiwan (Province of China), New Zealand. Central Pacific: Palau (Belau) and Hawaiian Islands. Eastern Pacific: Central California to Gulf of California, also Peru.
Habitat and Biology:
A large, sluggish bottom shark, occurring on continental and insular shelves and upper slopes at depths from 11 to at least 424 m; in California caught in submarine canyons. Eats a variety of fishes, including spiny dogfish, the young of the sixgill shark (Hexanchus-griseus), hake, flounders, rockfish, lingcod, topsmelt, herring, elephantfish (Callorinchus), and catshark (Apristurus) eggeases, also octopuses and squids.
Size:
Maximum about 4 m, size at birth below 45 cm, mature males reaching at least 220 cm, females immature at 254 cm and adult at 299 cm (sex not reported for 4 m specimen).
Interest to Fisheries:
Unimportant, occasionally taken by line gear, gillnets and bottom trawls.
Type material:
Holotype: Formerly in Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Oahu, Hawaiian Islands, apparently lost. Type Locality South coast of Kauai, Hawaiian Islands. Neotype: National Museum of New Zealand, NMNZ 2774, Pallaser Bay, Cook Strait, New Zealand, designated by Garrick (1960:110).