South African collar shark
South African collar shark | ||||||||||||
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Distribution of Chlamydoselachus africana |
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Chlamydoselachus africana | ||||||||||||
Ebert & Compagno , 2009 |
The South African collar shark ( Chlamydoselachus africana ) is one of two species in the family of collar sharks (Chlamydoselachidae). It lives in the southeastern Atlantic on the coasts of Angola , Namibia and South Africa at depths of 300 to 1400 meters.
features
The South African collar shark has a dark brown, slender, eel-like body and wrinkled skin on the trunk. The rostrum is short, the mouth large and terminal. The teeth are multi-pointed and the same in both jaws. The number of gill slits is six. They reach under the throat. The anal fin is longer than the dorsal fin, the caudal fin is not indented below.
Outwardly, the South African collar shark is very similar to the collar shark, which is no more than two meters long, but remains significantly smaller with a maximum length of 1.17 m (females) and also differs from the collar shark in some body proportions. He has a longer, higher and wider head (the head length is 17.3–17.9% of the body length compared to 13.1–16.2% in C. anguineus ), fewer vertebrae (147 compared to 160–171) and fewer Spirals in the intestine (26-28 versus 35-49).
In the radialia of the pectoral fin, those supported by the mesopterygium, a cartilage support of the pectoral fin, are more numerous in C. africana than in C. anguineus (7 versus 5–6), those supported by the metapterygium fewer (8 versus 9–12) than in C. anguineus . The radials of the pelvic fins are the same in both species, those of the anal fin in C. africana are slightly higher (30 compared to 20–28).
nutrition
Collared sharks like other deep-sea fish ( pelican eel , sack mouths or viper fish ) are able to open their mouths extremely wide and can devour prey that is a third or almost half their body length. Stomach examinations indicate that the South African collar shark eats dogfish of the genera Apristurus and Parmaturus , flying squids (Ommastrephidae) and possibly dogfish .
literature
- David A. Ebert, Leonard JV Compagno : Chlamydoselachus africana, a new species of frilled shark from southern Africa (Chondrichthyes, Hexanchiformes, Chlamydoselachidae). In: Zootaxa . Vol. 2173, 2009, ISSN 1175-5334 , pp. 1-18. online: PDF