The shortspine spurdog (''Squalus mitsukurii'') is a dogfish, a member of the

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

Squalidae Squalidae, more commonly known as dogfish, dog sharks, or spiny dogfish, are one of several families of sharks categorized under Squaliformes, making it the second largest order of sharks, numbering 119 species across 7 families. Having earned t ...

, found on

continental shelves A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an island ...

off Japan in

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

waters, from the surface to 950 m. Its length is up to 75 cm.

Taxonomy

The shortspine dogfish was once seen as a circumglobal species by many authors, including Compagno (1984) and Last & Stevens (1994). However, a series on papers published since 2007 have shown that a number of species synonymized with ''S. mitsukurii'' are distinct, and that the Hawaiian population of ''S. mitsukurii'' represent a distinct species, the Hawaiian spurdog.Daly-Engel TS, Koch A, Anderson JM, Cotton CF, Grubbs RD (2018) Description of a new deep-water dogfish shark from Hawaii, with comments on the Squalus mitsukurii species complex in the West Pacific. ZooKeys 798: 135-157. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.798.28375 HutoTZ.jpg, Head Squalus mitsukurii jaws.jpg, Jaws Squalus mitsukurii upper teeth.jpg, Upper teeth Squalus mitsukurii lower teeth.jpg, Lower teeth

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shortspine spurdog Squalus Fish described in 1903