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TAXONOMY
Kingdom Animalia – Animal, animaux, animals
Phylum Chordata – cordés, cordado, chordates
Class Chondrichthyes – cartilaginous fishes, rays, sharks, condrictes, peixe
Order Carcharhiniformes – ground sharks
Family Carcharhinidae Jordan and Evermann, 1896
Genus Carcharhinus Blainville, 1816 – gray sharks
Species Carcharhinus galapagensis (Snodgrass and Heller, 1905) – tiburón de Galápagos, Galapagos shark
STATUS: LEAST CONCERN
STATUS: LEAST CONCERN
The Galapagos shark is found all over the world, but the first place where it was discovered was in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. In Galapagos, they are particularly seen in the waters off of Wolf and Darwin islands. They are large with slender bodies. They have 14 rows of sawtoothed teeth that are triangular on the top and very sharp on the bottom. The Galapagos shark's skeletons are different from the skeletons of other sharks, they have 58 vertebrae, less than other sharks that have 86-97 vertebrae, or even 110-119 vertebrae.
Galapagos sharks eat bony fish that live at the bottom of the sea, but they like to pray on Galapagos Sea Lions and penguins; they are cannibalistic, so young sharks stay away from the adult ones. Adult Galapagos Sharks are to big to have natural predators, so the only threat are humans. Fishing at local level diminished the numbers of sharks, and since they reproduce slowly, they also recover slowly.
References
Galapagos shark. Galapagos Conservation Trust. (2019, December 11). Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://galapagosconservation.org.uk/wildlife/galapagos-shark/
Integrated Taxonomic Information System - search results. ITIS Standard Report - Error. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt#null
IUCN red list of threatened species. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/search
Keywords: Darwin islands, natural predators, bony fish, cannibalistic, sawtoothed
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