Author: (Smith, 1838)
Field Marks:
A Schroederichthys with moderately slim body, narrow snout,
and few large dark and small white spots.
Diagnostic Features:
Trunk and tail fairly slender in adults but extremely attenuated in young. Snout narrowly rounded; anterior nasal flaps narrow and lobate. Mouth relatively narrow and long, especially in adult males. Colour pattern of 7 or 8 dark brown saddles on grey-brown dorsal surface, also relatively few, scattered large dark and small white spots, the dark spots not bordering the saddles. Adults to at least 70 cm.
Geographical Distribution:
Western South Atlantic and eastern South Pacific, Argentina south to Straits of Magellan and north to central Chile.
Habitat and Biology:
A common inshore and offshore shark of the temperate South American continental shelf, found at depths of 14 to 78 m. Oviparous, probably with one egg per oviduct laid at a time. Sexual heterodonty, or dental sexual dimorphism, is strongly developed in this species, with adult males having teeth at least twice as high as comparably sized adult females as well as much longer and narrower mouths.
Size:
Maximum about 70 cm; males maturing at about 53 cm; females at 40 cm.
Interest to Fisheries:
Unknown.
Remarks:
Springer (1966, 1979) indicated that the type locality of this; species, the Cape of Good Hope, is erroneous and suggested that it may have resulted either from transport of the stuffed holotype aboard a ship from ' South America to South Africa, or from a labelling error.
Type material:
Holotype: British Museum, Natural History, BMNH 1857.10.20, ca. 690 mm dried specimen. Type Locality: "Cape of Good Hope" (possibly near Cape Horn; see Springer, 1979:118).