Lesser Spotted Dogfish
Scyliorhinus canicula
Lesser Spotted Dogfish; Small-spotted Catfish 4
Identification: Small, sharks with a slender shaped body with a blunt head. The two dorsal fins are located towards the tail end of the body. The texture of their skin is rough, similar to the coarseness of sandpaper. The nostrils are located on the underside of the snout and are connected to the mouth by a curved groove. The underside is a lighter greyish-white colour and the upper side is greyish-brown with darker spots. Dorsal colour is sandy and tightly tan, with numerous small spots and dark brown or nearly black in colour.
Size: Up to 1 m, usually 50 to 70 cm
Social Habit:
Habitat: Sandy, gravelly or muddy bottoms
Depth: Found primarily in shallow water but found down to 100 m
Feeds on: Wide range of food, such as, molluscs, echinoderms, polychaetes, crustaceans, sipunculids and tunicate but decapod crustaceans and fishes are their main food.
Distribution: Mediterranean, E Atlantic
Sources and Credits
- (c) Joachim S. Müller, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/joachim_s_mueller/4499630809/
- (c) Peter, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/peteredin/3464340767/
- (c) Simone Carletti, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-ND), https://www.flickr.com/photos/weppos/8589249448/
- Adapted by Lesley Clements from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scyliorhinus_canicula
