Rasptooth dogfish

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Rasptooth dogfish
Conservation status
Data deficient
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Subclass: Elasmobranchii
Order: Squaliformes
Family: Dalatiidae
Genus: Miroscyllium
Rafinesque, 1810
Species: M. sheikoi
Binomial name
Miroscyllium sheikoi
(Bonnaterre, 1788)

The rasptooth dogfish, Miroscyllium sheikoi, is a dogfish, the only species in the genus Miroscyllium, found on the Kyushu-Palau Ridge in the northwest Pacific Ocean at depths of 360 m. Its maximum length is unknown.

The rasptooth dogfish is a rare deepsea shark with a limited distribution area in southern Japan where it is known only from the Kyushu-Palau submarine ridge at depths of 360 m. Reaches at least 43 cm total length (TL) but very little information available on its biology. Known specimens were collected by research surveys using commercial bottom trawl nets. The species has no commercial value, but is possibly taken as a very rare bycatch in bottom trawl nets. Future expansion of deepwater fisheries could pose a threat to this poorly known species. However, at present there is very little, if any, fishing within the species' range.

The rasptooth dogfish is considered by IUCN to be critically endangered and facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild due to a population size estimated to number fewer than 250 mature individuals.

Rasptooth dogfish are ovoviviparous.

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