Mexican bull head shark
| Mexican bull head shark | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Heterodontus mexicanus | ||||||||||||
| Taylor & Castro-Aguirre , 1972 |
The Mexican bull head shark ( Heterodontus mexicanus ) is a bull head shark up to 70 cm long . It occurs only in the eastern Pacific off the coast of North, Central and South America from southern Baja California and the Gulf of California through Guatemala and the Gulf of Panama to Colombia.
Appearance and characteristics
The Mexican bullhead shark has an average body length of 40 to 50 cm and can reach a maximum size of 60 cm. It has a gray-brown body color with large black spots that are distributed over the body and the fins. A light band runs between the bulges of the eyes.
The shark has a cylindrical body with a conical head. The snout is very small and broadly rounded, the eye bulges are low. It has an anal fin and two dorsal fins , both of which are thorny. The first dorsal fin begins above the base of the pectoral fins, the second dorsal fin behind the end of the pelvic fins. The pelvic fins are twice as large as the dorsal fins. The shark has five comparatively long gill slits and a small injection hole (spiraculum) below the eye.
Way of life
The Mexican bullhead shark is a relatively common species in the area of the continental shelf and on island shelves , where it can live near the coast (intertidal zone) near the seabed at a depth of 20 to 50 m. He prefers stony or sandy surfaces. It feeds on molluscs and other invertebrates such as crabs and sea urchins as well as small fish.
Like all bull head sharks, it is egg-laying ( oviparous ) and lays 8 to 9 cm long eggs with conspicuous T-structures and long horn threads. The young sharks hatch with a size of about 14 cm. The animals reach sexual maturity at a length of about 40 to 50 cm.
distribution
The Mexican bullhead shark occurs only in the eastern Pacific off the coast of North, Central and South America from southern Baja California and the Gulf of California through Guatemala and the Gulf of Panama to Colombia.
literature
- Leonard Compagno , Marc Dando, Sarah Fowler: Sharks of the World . Princeton University Press , Princeton and Oxford 2005, ISBN 978-0-691-12072-0 , p. 152.
Web links
- Mexican bullhead shark on Fishbase.org (English)
- Entry in the database of the Shark Foundation
- Heterodontus mexicanus inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Posted by: Garayzar, CV, 2006. Retrieved November 5, 2013.