#Wolf eel scientific name skin#
In addition, their skin is made into leather, their liver oil is processed for vitamins, and their fins are used for shark fin soup. The meat is highly prized for human consumption cooked, dried and salted, or smoked. Participating countries include the former USSR, Japan, Taiwan, Spain, the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, and Mexico. The common thresher is widely caught by offshore longline and pelagic gillnet fisheries, especially in the northwestern Indian Ocean, the western, central, and eastern Pacific, and the North Atlantic. Threshers are also known to take large, solitary fishes such as lancetfish, as well as squid and other pelagic invertebrates. Before striking, the sharks compact schools of prey by swimming around them and splashing the water with its tail, often in pairs or small groups. Some 97% of the common thresher's diet is composed of bony fishes, mostly small schooling forage fish such as mackerel, bluefish, herring, needlefish, and lanternfish.
Most individuals are encountered near the surface, but this species has been recorded to at least a depth of 550 m (1,800 ft). They tend to be most abundant in proximity to land, particularly the juveniles which frequent near-coastal habitats such as bays. With commercial exploitation increasing in many parts of the world, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed this species as Vulnerable.Ĭommon threshers are inhabitants of both continental waters and the open ocean. The common thresher has a low rate of reproduction and cannot sustain heavy fishing pressure for long, a case in point being the rapid collapse of the thresher fishery off the U.S. This shark is also esteemed by recreational big game anglers for the exceptional fight it offers on hook-and-line. They are highly valued by commercial fishers for their meat, fins, hide, and liver oil large numbers are taken by longline and gillnet fisheries throughout its range. Females give birth to litters of 2–7 pups following a gestation period of nine months.Īlthough large, the common thresher has relatively small teeth and a timid disposition, posing minimal danger to humans. In common with other mackerel sharks, the common thresher is ovoviviparous with the unborn embryos being sustained by undeveloped eggs ovulated by their mother. This species feeds primarily on small, schooling forage fishes. It possesses physiological adaptations that allow it to maintain an internal body temperature higher than that of the surrounding sea water. The common thresher is a fast, strong swimmer that has been known to leap clear of the water. These sharks are seasonally migratory and follow warm water to higher latitudes in summer.
It can be distinguished from the latter species by the white of its belly extending in a band over the bases of its pectoral fins.Ĭommon threshers inhabit both coastal and pelagic waters in tropical and temperate climates worldwide, from the surface to a depth of 550 m (1,800 ft). pelagicus), which also has a streamlined body, short pointed snout, and modestly sized eyes. The common thresher resembles (and has often been confused with) the pelagic thresher ( A. This structure, the source for many a fanciful tale about this shark through history, is employed by the thresher in a whip-like fashion to deliver incapacitating blows to its prey. Almost half of that length consists of the elongated upper lobe of its caudal fin. The common thresher, Alopias vulpinus, is the largest species of thresher shark, family Alopiidae, attaining a maximum known length of 6 m (20 ft).
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