Zebra bull head shark
| Zebra bull head shark | ||||||||||||
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Zebra bullhead shark ( Heterodontus zebra ) |
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| Heterodontus zebra | ||||||||||||
| ( Gray , 1831) |
The zebra bull head shark ( Heterodontus zebra ) is a bull head shark up to 120 cm long . It occurs in the western Pacific from northern China , Japan and Korea via Vietnam and Indonesia to the Australian coastal waters.
Appearance and characteristics
The zebra bull head shark has an average body length of 80 to 100 cm and can reach a maximum size of 120 cm. It has a light brown, light gray to white body color with numerous noticeable dark brown to black stripes (zebra stripes) that extend vertically over the body from head to tail. In young animals, the stripes can also be conspicuously red-brown.
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 free end of the pelvic fins. The shark has five comparatively long gill slits and a small injection hole (spiraculum) below the eye.
Way of life
The zebra bullhead shark lives in the area of the continental shelf as well as on island shelves , where it lives near the coast (tidal zone) near the sea floor to a depth of 50 m in the Asian area and at depths between 150 and 200 meters off Western Australia. It probably feeds predatory on various invertebrates such as molluscs , crabs and sea urchins, as well as small fish.
Like all bull head sharks, it is egg-laying ( oviparous ) and probably lays flat eggs with spiral chambers without horn threads at the apex and short threads at the opposite end. The young sharks hatch with a size of about 15 cm. The animals reach sexual maturity at a length of about 60 cm.
distribution
The distribution area of the zebra bull head shark is in the coastal areas of the western Pacific. It extends from northern China , Japan and Korea via Vietnam and Indonesia to the Australian coastal waters.
literature
- Leonard Compagno , Marc Dando, Sarah Fowler: Sharks of the World . Princeton University Press , Princeton and Oxford 2005, ISBN 978-0-691-12072-0 , pp. 154-155.
Web links
- Zebra bullhead shark on Fishbase.org (English)
- Entry in the database of the Shark Foundation
- Heterodontus zebra inthe IUCN 2013 Red List of Threatened Species . Listed by: Barratt, P. & Cavanagh, RD, 2003. Retrieved September 2, 2013.