Centrophorus is a genus of squaliform shark

Shark

Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....

s. They are deep-water sharks found in temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world. They are characterized by grey or brown bodies, large green eyes, and spines on both dorsal fins. These spines give them their name, from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 kentron meaning "thorn" and pherein meaning "to bear".

The genus is present in the fossil record from the Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the "early recent", is a geologic epoch that lasted from about . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era...

 (C. squamosus) onwards.

Species

• Centrophorus acus Garman, 1906. (Needle dogfish)
• Centrophorus atromarginatus Garman, 1913. (Dwarf gulper shark)
• Centrophorus granulosus (Bloch
  Marcus Elieser Bloch
  Marcus Elieser Bloch was a German medical doctor and naturalist. He is generally considered one of the most important ichthyologists of the 18th century.- Life :...
  
   & Schneider
  Johann Gottlob Schneider
  Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider was a German classicist and naturalist.-Biography:Schneider was born at Collm in Saxony...
  
  , 1801). (Gulper shark)
• Centrophorus harrissoni McCulloch
  Alan Riverstone McCulloch
  Alan Riverstone McCulloch was a prominent Australian ichthyologist.McCulloch was born in Sydney, and began his scientific career at the age of 13 as an unpaid assistant to Edgar Ravenswood Waite in the Australian Museum there; Waite encouraged McCulloch to study zoology...
  
  , 1915 (Dumb gulper shark)
• Centrophorus isodon (Y. T. Chu, Q. W. Meng & J. X. Liu, 1981) (Blackfin gulper shark)
• Centrophorus lusitanicus Barbosa du Bocage
  José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage
  José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage was a Portuguese zoologist and politician. He was the curator of Zoology at the Museum of Natural History in Lisbon. He published numerous works on mammals, birds, and fishes. In the 1880s he became the Minister of the Navy and later the Minister for Foreign Affairs...
  
   & Brito Capello, 1864 (Lowfin gulper shark)
• Centrophorus moluccensis Bleeker
  Pieter Bleeker
  Pieter Bleeker was a Dutch medical doctor and ichthyologist, famous for his work on the fishes of East Asia – Atlas Ichthyologique des Orientales Neerlandaises – which was published 1862–1877....
  
  , 1860 (Smallfin gulper shark)
• Centrophorus niaukang Teng, 1959 (Taiwan gulper shark)
• Centrophorus robustus S. M. Deng, G. Q. Xiong & H. X. Zhan, 1985
• Centrophorus seychellorum Baranes, 2003
• Centrophorus squamosus (Bonnaterre
  Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre
  Abbé Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre was a French naturalist who contributed sections on cetaceans, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects to the Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique...
  
  , 1788) (Leafscale gulper shark)
• Centrophorus tessellatus Garman, 1906 (Mosaic gulper shark)
• Centrophorus westraliensis W. T. White, Ebert & Compagno, 2008 (Western gulper shark)
• Centrophorus zeehaani W. T. White, Ebert & Compagno, 2008 (Southern dogfish)