The western gulper shark (''Centrophorus westraliensis'') is a species of

squaliform The Squaliformes are an order of sharks that includes about 126 species in seven families. Members of the order have two dorsal fins, which usually possess spines, they usually have a sharp head, no anal fin or nictitating membrane, and fi ...

shark discovered in 2008. The species had previously been identified as a variant of the

dumb gulper shark The dumb gulper shark (''Centrophorus harrissoni'') is a rare and endangered deepwater dogfish, known from only along the east coast of Australia and isolated spots north and west of New Zealand. It is also known as the dumb shark, Harrison's d ...

, however was differentiated based on morphology. The western gulper is known from the waters of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, as well as

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

East Timor East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-weste ...

, and islands in the Southern

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. This shark is classified as "least concern" by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Taxonomy

The first description of the species was made in 2008 by

William Toby White William Toby White is an Australian ichthyologist. He studies speciation and biodiversity of shark, ray, and skate species (subclass Elasmobranchii) through morphological and molecular systematics. Education White received bachelor's (1997) ...

, a researcher at

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentar ...

in Australia, David A. Ebert, a researcher at the Pacific Shark Research Center in

Moss Landing, California Moss Landing, formerly Moss, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Monterey County, California, United States. It is located north-northeast of Monterey, at an elevation of . It is on the shore of Monterey Bay, at the ...

, and

Leonard J.V. Compagno Leonard Joseph Victor Compagno is an international authority on shark taxonomy and the author of many scientific papers and books on the subject, best known of which is his 1984 catalogue of shark species produced for the Food and Agriculture Organi ...

, a researcher at the Shark Research Center of the

Iziko Museums The Iziko Museums of Cape Town (from isiXhosa Iziko is''“a hearth”'' – the traditional centre of the home where families would get together to share oral histories) — an amalgamation of 12 national museums located near the Cape Town cit ...

. It was published in the volume ''Descriptions of New Australian Chondrichthyans'', which also published descriptions of 36 other species of sharks, skates, rays, chimera, and rat fish. Prior to this publication, the species was not differentiated from the

(''Centrophorus harrissoni''), which has a similar appearance.

References

western gulper shark Fish of Australia Fauna of the Kerguelen Islands Fauna of the Lesser Sunda Islands Taxa named by William Toby White Taxa named by David A. Ebert Taxa named by Leonard Compagno Western gulper shark {{shark-stub