Mitsukurinidae
| Mitsukurinidae Temporal range: 146–0 Ma Early Cretaceous to Present | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Chondrichthyes |
| Subclass: | Elasmobranchii |
| Superorder: | Selachimorpha |
| Order: | Lamniformes |
| Family: | Mitsukurinidae D. S. Jordan, 1898 |
| Genera | |
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| Synonyms | |
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Mitsukurinidae is a family of sharks with one living genus, Mitsukurina, and five fossil genera: Anomotodon, Protoscapanorhynchus, Pseudoscapanorhynchus and Scapanorhynchus, Woellsteinia[1] though some taxonomists consider Scapanorhynchus to be a synonym of Mitsukurina.[2][3] The only known living species is the goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni.
The most distinctive characteristic of the goblin sharks is the long, trowel-shaped, beak-like snout, much longer than those of other sharks. The snout contains sensory organs to detect the electrical signals given off by the shark's prey.[4] They also possess long, protrusible jaws.[5] When the jaws are retracted, the shark resembles a grey nurse shark, Carcharias taurus, with an unusually long nose.
References
- ↑ Mikko's Phylogeny Archive
- ↑ Froese, Rainer, and Daniel Pauly, eds. (2010). "List of Nominal Species of Mitsukurinidae (Goblin shark)". FishBase. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ↑ "Scapanorhynchus". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ↑ Stevens, J. & Last, P.R. (1998). Paxton, J.R. & Eschmeyer, W.N., ed. Encyclopedia of Fishes. San Diego: Academic Press. p. 63. ISBN 0-12-547665-5.
- ↑ Froese, Rainer and Pauly, Daniel, eds. (2005). "Mitsukurina owstoni" in FishBase. 10 2005 version.