Author: (Bonnaterre, 1788)
Echinorhinus brucus (Bonnaterre, 1788)
Status in World Register of Marine Species:
Accepted name: Echinorhinus brucus (Bonnaterre, 1788) (updated 2009-06-25)
Diagnosis: snout ovate, tapering smoothly from eyes; nostrils midway between snout tip and mouth corners; anterior nasal flap lobed. Mouth crescentic, labial furrows short at corners. Teeth similar in jaws, not overlapping, cusps strongly oblique outwardly, with I or 2 small cusps on each flank, cutting edge almost flat. Spiracle well behind eye by distance greater than eye diameter. Gill-slits successively increasing in length, fifth almost twice the length of the first. Pectoral fins short, brush-shaped; first dorsal fin over posterior portion of pelvic fin base, brush-shaped, small; second dorsal fin over pelvic fin tips, brush-shaped, slightly smaller than first dorsal; pelvic fins relatively long based; caudal fin falcate, no sub-terminal notch, lower lobe not differentiated. Body sparsely covered with irregularly spaced buckler-like dermal denticles that form flat shields, varying in diameter, with large finely ridged spines. Colour: grey to brown, with reflections of varying shades above, light brown to white below. Size: to 250 cm, common to 225 cm.
Habitat: benthic on slopes at 400 900 m, occasionally straying on to shallow shelf areas. Food: fishes and crabs. Reproduction: unknown, probably ovovlviparous.
Distribution: northward to Scottish and Irish slopes; also Mediterranean.
Eggs, embryonic and young stages. Cipria, 1937: 1-6, pl. I.