Squatina squatina

Appearance

The head and body are very broad and stocky, with small eyes positioned dorsally and followed by a pair of larger spiracles. The anal fin is absent, and the caudal fin has a larger lower lobe than upper. There are patches of small spines on the snout and over the eyes.

One of the largest members of its family, female angelsharks can attain a length of 2.4 m (7.9 ft) and males 1.8 m (5.9 ft). The maximum reported weight is 80 kg (180 lb).

Range and habitat

The angelshark occurs in the temperate waters of the northeastern Atlantic, from southern Norway and Sweden to the Western Sahara and the Canary Islands, among them around Ireland and Britain and in the Mediterranean. It remains extant around the Canary Islands, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Palestine, Turkey, northern Cyprus, eastern Greece (the Aegean Sea), the Adriatic Sea of eastern Italy, Sicily, Malta, Corsica, Ireland and western Britain/Wales. This benthic shark inhabits the continental shelf, preferring soft substrates such as mud or sand, and can be found from near the coast to a depth of 150 m (490 ft).

Healthy subpopulations of angelsharks are thought to still persist in areas off North Africa and around the Canary Islands, though a more thorough assessment is urgently needed. This species is protected within three marine reserves in the Balearic Islands, although it has not been reported from this area since the mid-1990s.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

Prey reported taken include the hake Merluccius merluccius, the bream Pagellus erythrinus, grunts in the genus Pomadasys, the flatfishes Bothus spp., Citharus linguatula, and Solea solea, the squid Loligo vulgaris, the cuttlefishes Sepia officinalis and Sepiola spp., and the crabs Medorippe lanata, Geryon trispinosus, Dromia personata, Goneplax rhomboides, Liocarcinus corrugatus, and Atelecyclus rotundatus. Like other members of its family, the angelshark is a nocturnal ambush predator that buries itself in sediment and waits for passing prey, mostly benthic bony fishes, but also skates and invertebrates.

In crisis

Since the mid-20th century, intense commercial fishing across the angelshark's range has decimated its population via bycatch – it is now locally extinct or nearly so across most of its northern range, and the prospects of the remaining fragmented subpopulations are made more precarious by its slow rate of reproduction. As a result, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed this species as critically endangered. Due to its benthic, near-shore habits, individuals of all ages are susceptible to incidental capture by bottom trawls, trammel nets, and bottom longlines. The low reproductive rate of this shark limits its capacity to withstand population depletion.

Angelshark numbers have declined precipitously across most of its range. It is now believed to be extinct in the North Sea and most of the northern Mediterranean, and has become extremely rare elsewhere. As a result of these steep population declines and the ongoing threat from demersal fisheries, the IUCN has assessed the angelshark as critically endangered.

Squatina squatina 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 Squatina squatina, Wikidata item Q578842. 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.