Echinorhinus
Encyclopedia
Echinorhinus is a genus of squaliform shark
s, the only extant genus in the family Echinorhinidae. The name is from Greek
echinos meaning "spiny" and rhinos meaning "nose". Both species are uncommon, little known sharks. They are found worldwide in cold temperate to tropical seas down to 900 metres (2,952.8 ft) depth.
This genus includes two extant species characterized by a short nose, rough spiny dermal denticles, no anal fin, and two small spineless dorsal fin
s. Both species are relatively large sharks, at 3.1 metres (10.2 ft) and 4 metres (13.1 ft) in body length. They feed on smaller fish, and on crabs and cephalopod
s. They are ovoviviparous, with the mother retaining the egg-cases inside her body until they hatch.
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, the only extant genus in the family Echinorhinidae. The name is 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;...
echinos meaning "spiny" and rhinos meaning "nose". Both species are uncommon, little known sharks. They are found worldwide in cold temperate to tropical seas down to 900 metres (2,952.8 ft) depth.
This genus includes two extant species characterized by a short nose, rough spiny dermal denticles, no anal fin, and two small spineless dorsal fin
Dorsal fin
A dorsal fin is a fin located on the backs of various unrelated marine and freshwater vertebrates, including most fishes, marine mammals , and the ichthyosaurs...
s. Both species are relatively large sharks, at 3.1 metres (10.2 ft) and 4 metres (13.1 ft) in body length. They feed on smaller fish, and on crabs and cephalopod
Cephalopod
A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda . These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles modified from the primitive molluscan foot...
s. They are ovoviviparous, with the mother retaining the egg-cases inside her body until they hatch.
Species
- Echinorhinus brucus (BonnaterrePierre Joseph BonnaterreAbbé 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) (Bramble shark) - Echinorhinus cookei PietschmannViktor PietschmannViktor Pietschmann was an Austrian ichthyologist at the Vienna Museum of Natural History. He was the curator of the fish collection from 1919 to 1946. During his life, he made collecting to trips to the Barents Sea, Greenland, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Hawaii, Romania, and Poland. He described many...
, 1928 (Prickly shark)