Longnose velvet dogfish

1/26/2018

Centroselachus crepidater has a multitude of really cool common names, which include Longnose velvet dogfish, Golden dogfish, Black shark, Deepwater dogfish, Longnose dogfish, Roughskin dogfish, and Smallspine dogfish. Phew! What a list!

A. C. Chowdhary - Zoology of the Royal Indian Marine Survey ship Investigator : under the command of Commander T.H. Hemming

To make it simple, TFUI will refer to Centroselachus crepidater as the Longnose velvet dogfish. It’s a fairly common but poorly studied species in the Somniosidae family (sleeper shark).

Longnose velvet dogfish have a wide, but patchy distribution in the southern hemisphere’s subtropical seas. Reaching a total length of 130 cm, they are a grey-dark brown-black colour and are cigar-like in shape. With two long pectoral fins and small, widely-spaced apart dorsal fin, this shark doesn’t exactly look built for speed. And since they enjoy an average depth of 780-1100 m, it doesn’t really need to be going anywhere fast… which may help us in learning more about it if we ever get more specimens, haha. The IUCN has assessed these sharks as Least Concern (LC).

want to see these sharks? so do we!

glossary

Dorsal fin: Fin located on the back.
IUCN: International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Pectoral fins: Fins located behind the gills on either side.