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Distribution and biology of the smalltooth sandtiger shark Odontaspis ferox (Chondrichthyes: Odontaspididae).

Ken Graham^a, Ian Fergusson^b, and Leonard Compagno^c

^a NSW Fisheries, Cronulla Fisheries Centre, PO Box 21, Cronulla, Australia 2230
^b The Shark Trust, National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth, England.
^c Shark Research Center, South African Museum, PO Box 61, Cape Town 8000, South Africa.
Email: grahamk@fisheries.gov.nsw.au

The smalltooth sandtiger shark, Odontaspis ferox, grows to more than four metres in length but is poorly-known despite its large size and the passage of nearly 200 years since it was first described. This study reviewed the historical records and collated all recent data on its distribution and biology. O. ferox has a cosmopolitan distribution in tropical and sub-tropical waters of all oceans and the Mediterranean Sea but nowhere does the species appear to be abundant. It is essentially demersal but has been captured pelagically in mid-ocean. It frequently occurs inshore on steeply shelving coastal and insular locations and the species has now been identified at four widely separated dive sites. In the southern hemisphere, O. ferox is mostly caught on continental slope trawling grounds. Its bathic range is greater than previously reported, extending from 15 m to at least 850 m. The greatest number of records is from trawl-grounds off NSW, Australia, where specimens of all sizes were caught. Survey and commercial catch data suggest that numbers of O. ferox on the NSW grounds have markedly declined since the advent of deepwater commercial trawling in the 1970s. In areas of steep untrawlable terrain, characteristic of many locations in the Mediterranean Sea and around oceanic islands, increased gill-netting and longlining are likely to impact on local populations, with mature individuals particularly vulnerable. Although O. ferox is seldom targeted by commercial fishing activities, its very low fecundity make it susceptible to local extirpation, even at seemingly small capture rates.

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