Author: (Bonnaterre, 1788)
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 snout, leaf-shaped multicuspidate, imbricated lateral denticles, and rear tips of pectoral fins broadly angular and not strongly extended.
Diagnostic Features:
Snout moderately long, broadly parabolic, preoral snout almost equal to mouth width but shorter than distance from mouth to pectoral origins; upper anterolateral teeth with erect to semioblique cusps. First dorsal fin relatively low and long; second dorsal moderately large, as high or higher than first, with base about 2/3 length of first dorsal base, and spine origin about over rear tips or 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; free rear tips of pectoral fins forming broad angles, not expanded into elongated lobes and not reaching the level of first dorsal spine, inner margins shorter than distance from second dorsal spine to caudal origin; caudal fin with a shallowly concave postventral margin in adults. Lateral trunk denticles overlapping one another, with slender pedicels elevating flat, leaflike crowns, a strong main cusp and 3 or more pairs of lateral cusps on their posterior edges in adults (lateral cusps increasing from a pair in young with denticle replacement with growth).
Geographical Distribution:
Eastern Atlantic: Iceland and Atlantic Slope to Senegal, Faeroes, Madeira, Azores, Gabon to Zaire, Namibia, western Cape of Good Hope. Western Indian Ocean: South Africa, Aldabra Islands. Western Pacific: Japan, Philippines (Leyte, Mindanao), southeastern Australia, New Zealand.
Habitat and Biology:
A large, deepwater dogfish of the continental slopes from 229 to 2359 m depth, but rare above 1000 m depth in the eastern Atlantic. Also found pelagically between the surface and 1250 m depth over water 3940 m deep. Ovoviviparous, with litters of 5 young.
Size:
Maximum total length about 158 cm, males mature at about 103 cm, females at 137 to 158 cm.
Interest to Fisheries:
In the eastern Atlantic, fished with bottom trawls, line gear and fixed bottom nets, and utilized dried salted for human consumption and for fishmeal. Probably fished elsewhere where it occurs, but details lacking.
Remarks:
I follow Bigelow and Schroeder (1957), Garrick (1959) and Bass, d'Aubrey and Kistnasamy (1976) in the synonymy of this species.
Type material:
Holotype: Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, MNHN-A7829 (head only). Type Locality: Not given.