Endangered
Banded houndshark
Triakis scyllium
Banded houndshark is a shark or ray in the family Triakidae (order Carcharhiniformes) — Triakis scyllium, recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The snout is short, broad, and rounded. The widely separated nostrils are each preceded by a lobe of skin that does not reach the mouth. There are five pairs of gill slits. The second dorsal fin is about three-quarters as high as the first and larger than the anal fin.
This shark reaches 1.5 m (4.9 ft) in length.
Range and habitat
Native to the northwestern Pacific Ocean, the banded houndshark occurs from the southern Russian Far East to Taiwan, among them Japan, Korea, and eastern China. Records from the Philippines are questionable. This common, benthic shark is found over continental and insular shelves, mostly close to shore, but also to a depth of 150 m (490 ft). The banded houndshark is a houndshark in the family Triakidae, common in the northwestern Pacific Ocean from the southern Russian Far East to Taiwan.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The banded houndshark is nocturnal and generally solitary, though several individuals may rest together, sometimes piled atop one another inside a cave. Shrimp and spoon worms are important prey for sharks up to 70 cm (28 in) long. Cephalopods predominate in the diets of larger sharks.
Nocturnal and largely solitary, the banded houndshark preys on benthic invertebrates and bony fishes.
In crisis
It is caught as bycatch off Japan, Taiwan, and likely elsewhere in its range. It may be eaten but is not as well-regarded as related species. Because fishing does not appear to have diminished this shark's population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed it under Endangered.
Banded houndshark is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Banded houndshark, Wikidata item Q2024385. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
