Contemporary records of the rare and critically endangered angular rough shark from the eastern Adriatic Sea

Published on
25 October 2021

Contemporary records of the rare and critically endangered angular rough shark, Oxynotus centrina (Linnaeus, 1758), from the eastern Adriatic Sea

Andrej A. Gajić, Suvad Lelo, Aleksandar Joksimović, Ana Pešić, Jovana Tomanić, Hajrudin Beširović, Branko Dragičević

ABSTRACT:

Angular rough shark, Oxynotus centrina (Linnaeus, 1758), is a poorly known and rare bathydemersal shark inhabiting continental shelves and upper slopes with a significant lack of data and almost no published records in the Adriatic Sea in this century. In this paper, we present 20 new occurrences recorded from May 2015 to September 2021, of which 19 are in Croatian and 1 in Montenegrin territorial waters. Records of juveniles, subadults and adults are reported. The number of described records and available data on HSI/BMI calculations points out that the living conditions are probably most favoured in the area off the Kornati archipelago (central Adriatic Sea), compared to the habitats in the Southern Adriatic where the populations might have significantly lower density. Due to the non-systematic research and non-probabilistic data collection, it is difficult to establish with certainty whether greater number of records in the continental shelf is just an ostensible phenomenon.

Journal of Fish Biology, DOI: 10.1111/jfb.14932

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