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Hound Sharks. Triakidae species.
All images and text on this
page are copyright protected: © 2010 Kelvin Aitken.
All rights reserved. Students may use this information for
personal research only. Not for commercial use.
Most members of the hound shark group are noted primarily
for their commercial value. This small harmless family bears
most of the features of the more renowned whaler sharks but
they lack a notch in the front of the tail, called a precaudal
pit, and their internal anatomy is different in having an
intestine shaped like a spiral corkscrew, called a spiral
intestinal valve, as apposed to a scroll valve intestine which
is shaped like a rolled up newspaper. Size varies from 800
cm to 1700 cm with the main commercial species occuring in
inshore southern Australian waters and the lesser known species
found in deeper offshore tropical water. All have a varied
diet of small fish, squid, octopus and crabs.
The two most familiar hound shark species are the School Shark
and the Gummy Shark. Both species make long migrations across
the southern coastline with tagged gummy sharks being tracked
from Tasmania to Western Australia during the summer breeding
season.
School Shark
When adult, the slender130-180 cm School Shark (Galeorhinus
galeus) has a translucent nose and a beautiful large sculptured
tail. Although found throughout southern Australia, these
sharks are rarely seen by divers due to their timid nature:
nearby fishermen may be pulling them in with no underwater
sightings by the divers at all. School Sharks live for over
55 years, with females producing 15–50 pups every third
year only after reaching breeding maturity at 10 years of
age. These factors make this shark susceptible to overfishing
and they have indeed become so.
Gummy Shark
The Gummy Shark (Mustelus antarcticus) has also been heavily
fished and is sold as 'flake'. It lives for about 16–17
years, with females over the age of five giving birth to an
average of 14 pups. Despite its name, the Gummy Shark does
have small bluntly-pointed teeth which are ideal for crushing
its food which includes small fish, crabs and cephalopods
such as squid or octopus. While the Gummy and School Sharks
are very similar in shape and size, the former has a pattern
of small white spots over a bronze-grey back and a distinctive
lateral line.
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