Order

Rhinopristiformes

  Class

Elasmobranchii

No. in FishBase

Genera : 1 | Species : 10 Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes

  Environment

Fresh : Yes | Brackish : Yes | Marine : Yes

  Division

  Aquarium

  First Fossil Record

     

  Remark

Indo-Pacific and Eastern Atlantic, including Mediterranean Sea; tropical and subtropical inshore continental and insular seas; intertidal habitats and some species are recorded from fresh and brackish waters; Bottom-dwellers, often resting on soft mud or sandy bottoms; strong swimmers.

Species of this family are characterized by a flattened, spade-like to wedge-shaped disc and a robust, depressed hark-liketrunk; snout typically long and its tips varies from being acute or bluntly rounded, to protruding forward as a large, bulbous lobe; eyes typically small and widely separated, spiracles small with 1-2 variably developed folds; nostrils long and almost transverseto oblique with many lamellae (up to 94); no nasal curtain, anterior nasal flaps are relatively narrow and joined posteriorly to the inner edge of the nostril; mouth profile straight;;skin with fine denticles, with small thorns variably confied to a row along mid-line of body and small patches near eyes, on shoulder and sometimes on snout (often better developed in young than adults; long-based pelvic fins positioned laterally, posterior to the disc; 2 similarly-shaped, upright dorsal fins are well separated, the first positioned well behind the tips of the pelvic fins; small, posteriorly directed caudal fin without ventral lobe typical of wedgefishes (Rhinidae); colour plain browish or greyish dorsally with anterior cranium and rostral cartilage sharply demarcated from a much paler translucent snout; none of the species has spots, stripes nor blotches; underside usually white but the ventral snout appears weakly translucent nad it tip can hav ea black blotch.

Feed mainly on benthic invertebrates, including small benthic fishes.

Ovoviviparous.

Maximum size: most exceed 2 m TL and some reaching 3 m TL or more.

  Etymology

  Reproductive guild

  Typical activity level

  Main Ref.

Last, P.R., W.T. White, M.R. de Carvalho, B. Séret, M.F.W. Stehmann and G.J.P. Naylor 2016

  Coordinator

  Deep Fin Classification