MarBEF Data System


WoRMS taxon details

Hexanchidae Gray, 1851

105699  (urn:lsid:marinespecies.org:taxname:105699)

  1. Biota
  2. Animalia (Kingdom)
  3. Chordata (Phylum)
  4. Vertebrata (Subphylum)
  5. Gnathostomata (Infraphylum)
  6. Chondrichthyes (Parvphylum)
  7. Elasmobranchii (Class)
  8. Neoselachii (Subclass)
  9. Selachii (Infraclass)
  10. Squalomorphi (Superorder)
  11. Hexanchiformes (Order)
  12. Hexanchidae (Family)
accepted
Family

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Children Display

  1. Genus Heptranchias Rafinesque, 1810
  2. Genus Hexanchus Rafinesque, 1810
  3. Genus Notorynchus Ayres, 1855
  4. Genus Heptanchus Müller & Henle, 1841 accepted as Heptranchias Rafinesque, 1810
  5. Genus Heptrachias accepted as Heptranchias Rafinesque, 1810 (misspelling)
  6. Genus Heptranchus accepted as Heptranchias Rafinesque, 1810 (unaccepted > misspelling - incorrect subsequent spelling)
  7. Genus Heptrancus accepted as Heptranchias Rafinesque, 1810 (misspelling)
  8. Genus Monopterhinus de Blainville, 1816 accepted as Hexanchus Rafinesque, 1810 (synonym)
  9. Genus Monopterinus accepted as Monopterhinus de Blainville, 1816 accepted as Hexanchus Rafinesque, 1810 (misspelling)
  10. Genus Notidanus Cuvier, 1816 accepted as Hexanchus Rafinesque, 1810
  11. Genus Notorhynchus accepted as Notorynchus Ayres, 1855 (misspelling)
marine, brackish, terrestrial
Not documented
Distribution Distribution: Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Most species are deepwater inhabitants of the outer continental shelves...  
Distribution Distribution: Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Most species are deepwater inhabitants of the outer continental shelves and upper continental slopes down to at least 1875 m depth. Gill openings 6 in Hexanchus, 7 in Heptranchias and Notorynchus. Margin of first gill discontinuous across throat. Mouth subterminal with large, bladelike, comb-shaped teeth in lower jaw. One dorsal fin. Caudal fin with strong subterminal notch. Cow sharks are ovoviviparous and lack a yolk-sac placenta. They feed on relatively large marine organisms, including other sharks, rays, bony fish, crustacean and carrion. Species range in size from 140 to 480 cm. hexa- (gr.) = six  [details]
Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. (2025). FishBase. Hexanchidae Gray, 1851. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=105699 on 2025-04-02
Date
action
by
2004-12-21 15:54:05Z
created
van der Land, Jacob
2015-04-17 08:48:21Z
changed
Bailly, Nicolas

Creative Commons License The webpage text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License


Nomenclature

basis of record van der Land, J.; Costello, M.J.; Zavodnik, D.; Santos, R.S.; Porteiro, F.M.; Bailly, N.; Eschmeyer, W.N.; Froese, R. (2001). Pisces, in: Costello, M.J. et al. (Ed.) (2001). European register of marine species: a check-list of the marine species in Europe and a bibliography of guides to their identification. Collection Patrimoines Naturels, 50: pp. 357-374 (look up in IMIS) [details] 

Taxonomy

taxonomy source Van Der Laan, R.; Eschmeyer, W. N.; Fricke, R. (2014). Family-group names of Recent fishes. Zootaxa. 3882(1): 1-230., available online at https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3882.1.1 [details] Available for editors  PDF available [request]

Other

context source (PeRMS) Chirichigno, N.; Cornejo, M. (2001). Catálogo comentado de los peces marinos del Perú. 2ª ed. Instituto del Mar de Perú. Publicación Especial. Callao. 314 p. [details] 

additional source Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & Van der Laan, R. (eds). (2025). ECoF. Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes: Genera, Species, References. California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2025., available online at http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/Ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp [details] 

 
EMODnet BathymetrySource: EMODnet Bathymetry
Countries
 Present  Inaccurate  Introduced: alien  Containing type locality 
Unreviewed
Distribution Distribution: Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Most species are deepwater inhabitants of the outer continental shelves and upper continental slopes down to at least 1875 m depth. Gill openings 6 in Hexanchus, 7 in Heptranchias and Notorynchus. Margin of first gill discontinuous across throat. Mouth subterminal with large, bladelike, comb-shaped teeth in lower jaw. One dorsal fin. Caudal fin with strong subterminal notch. Cow sharks are ovoviviparous and lack a yolk-sac placenta. They feed on relatively large marine organisms, including other sharks, rays, bony fish, crustacean and carrion. Species range in size from 140 to 480 cm. hexa- (gr.) = six  [details]
    Definitions

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LanguageName 
English cow sharks  [details]
Japanese カグラザメ科  [details]
Norwegian Bokmål kamtannhaifamilien  [details]
Norwegian Nynorsk kamtannhaifamilien  [details]
Swedish kamtandhajar  [details]
To Biological Information System for Marine Life (BISMaL) 
To European Nucleotide Archive, ENA (Hexanchidae) 
To Genbank 
To ITIS
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