Description: The spined pygmy shark Squaliolus laticaudus is a very small dogfish (about 25cm) with large eyes, upper margin nearly straight; upper lip without papillae. Color: dark with conspicuously light-margined fins. It has well-developed photophores densely covering the ventral part of the body and sparsely seen on the sides and hardly developed on the dorsal surface.
Global Distribution: Nearly circumtropical. Absent from the Eastern Pacific. View Map
BIOLOGICAL FEATURES
Size: Maximum length: male 22.0 cm (total length); female 25.0 cm (TL).
Behavioural ecology: Displays vertical migrations on a diel cycle, seen at the bottom during the day and travels to 200 m at night.
Population structure & migrations:
ECOLOGICAL FEATURES
Depth range: FishBase: 200 - 1200 m.
Habitat: Bathypelagic. An oceanic, wide-ranging, tropical pelagic species occurring near continental and insular land masses, sometimes over the shelves, but usually over the slopes.
Feeding habits: Feeds on deepwater squid, lanternfish, gonostomatids and idiacanthids, and probably follows its prey on their diel migrations.
Trophic level: FishBase: 4.2
FISHERIES
Commercial interest: Too small to have any commercial interest.
Conservation status: Global: Least concern.
Europe: Least concern.
IUCN (2014). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.1. www.iucnredlist.org
Nieto A., Ralph G.M., Comeros-Raynal M.T., Kemp J., GarcÃa Criado M., Allen D.J., Dulvy N.K., Walls R.H.L., Russell B., Pollard D., GarcÃa S., Craig M., Collette B.B., Pollom R., Biscoito M., Labbish Chao N., Abella A., Afonso P., Ãlvarez H., Carpenter K.E., Clò S., Cook R., Costa M.J., Delgado J., Dureuil M., Ellis J.R., Farrell E.D., Fernandes P., Florin A-B., Fordham S., Fowle, S., Gil de Sola L., Gil Herrera J., Goodpaster A., Harvey M., Heessen H., Herler J., Jung A., Karmovskaya E., Keskin C., Knudsen S.W., Kobyliansky S., KovaÄić M., Lawson J.M., Lorance P., McCully Phillips S., Munroe T., Nedreaas K., Nielsen J., Papaconstantinou C., Polidoro B., Pollock C.M., Rijnsdorp A.D., Sayer C., Scott J., Serena F., Smith-Vaniz W.F., Soldo A., Stump E., Williams J.T. (2015). Europen Red List of Marine Fishes. IUCN and European Union, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 90 pp.
