Plagiostomata of the Pacific. Pt. I. Fam. Heterodontidae / by N. de Miklouho-Maclay and William Macleay.

  • Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Plagiostomata of the Pacific. Pt. I. Fam. Heterodontidae / by N. de Miklouho-Maclay and William Macleay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/34 (page 313)
    This Shark is frequently caught in Port Jackson, and seems to have been found from time to time on various parts of the Australian and New Zealand coasts. It is also stated to have been found in the Bast Indian Archipelago and Japan ; but there seems to be some reason to suspect the identity of the Japanese species, if not of the other. Certainly, the figures given as those of the Port Jackson Shark, in the Voy. of the Coquille, pi. 11, and in Muller and Henle, pi. 81, are so extremely unlike the fish they are intended to represent, as to suggest a doubt of their being the same species ; and the form of the penta-cuspid tooth, figured by the last-named authors, has never, we believe, been seen in any of the Port Jackson adult specimens. The numerous transverse bands on the back, too, in those figures, suggestive of the specific name “ zebra,” are utterly unknown in the true H. Phillipi. But little can be added to the history of this curious Shark. The stomach is generally well filled with fragments of shells, but not so finely comminuted as might be expected from the charac- ter of the teeth, and the bowels are often well charged with cestode worms. It is remarkably tenacious of life, but if we are to believe the accounts of the fishermen, very slow of reproduc- tion—never having more than two eggs at a time, and only one brood in the year. Heterodontus galeatus. Gunth. Cat. Brit. Mus., Vol. 8, p. 416. This species has a less elongate appearance that H. Phillipi, but I cannot find an appreciable difference in the proportionate measurements. I shall confine my descriptions to those points only in which it differs from that species already so elaborately described. The head is more rounded in profile. The upper lip has tho lateral flap less developed, not overlapping so much the lateral fold of the lower lip. The jaws shorter and deeper, the hinder part of the “rami” of the lower jaw being very deep. The teeth are similar as to number and distribution, but very different in form, the smaller teeth towards the symphysis of the [0]