Critically Endangered
Indian swellshark
Cephaloscyllium silasi
The Indian swellshark is a catshark of the family Scyliorhinidae found in the western Indian Ocean near Quilon, India and Sauqira Bay, Oman.
Appearance
The Indian swellshark has a light brown dorsal surface striped with seven dark brown bands, and a pale brown underside. Juvenile sharks appear light brown, similar to the adult but more faded in colour.
Suspected to be a 'dwarf' species of Cephaloscyllium, the Indian swellshark is estimated to reach a maximum of 50.0 cm in total length.
Range and habitat
The Indian swellshark is a catshark of the family Scyliorhinidae found in the western Indian Ocean near Quilon, India and Sauqira Bay, Oman. It is threatened by fishing pressure as it is caught incidentally by deep-water trawling practices, that occur throughout its entire known range.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Breeding
Sharks and rays grow slowly and have few young. A fishery that treats them as bycatch can empty a coastal form.
In crisis
Specimens caught as bycatch near North Sentinel Island of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have been genetically identified as Indian swellsharks, expanding its known range to the Andaman Sea. It grows to about 36 cm in length, and can expand its body by taking in air or water to make it appear larger to predators. The shark is considered to be critically endangered.
Indian swellshark is Critically 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 Indian swellshark, Wikidata item Q2616896. 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.
