Perfect Little Killing Machines: The Jaws of Death

There’s a bit of a pardox of public opinion regarding the effectiveness of spiny dogfish as predators.  Depend on who you ask, they’re either forming a swimming wall of teeth annihilating everything in their path or they’re weak scavengers, poor excuses for sharks.  This much-maligned…

Perfect Little Killing Machines: an Introduction to the Series

Spiny dogfish have had a long history of interactions with humans.  These sharks, once reviled as pests, became valued food fish (particularly in Europe), were declared overfished, rebounded much more quickly than expected, and are now targeted by a certified sustainable fishery on the U.S….

Notes on Some of Those 79 “New” Shark Species

By now it’s somewhat old news that a recent study by Gavin Naylor and other researchers from all over (freely available here) has revealed that there may be up to 79 previously undiscovered shark and ray species, which complicates conservation and fisheries management considerably.  This…

It’s Official – North Pacific Dogfish a Different Species

A while back I posted on the possibility of spiny dogfish in the North Pacific (think California up to Alaska, across to Kamchatka and the upper parts of Japan) being a different species, based on differences in both life history and genetics.  Well, now it’s…

Isurus oxyglinkus

Unfortunately a punishing round of grading exams and lab reports has kept me from posting since about Monday.  I’m through it now, but now I’m far too brain-fried to offer up any substantial posts.  While I recover my aching brain, enjoy these offerings from the…

Squalinkus acanthias

In the fine tradition of Kevin Z’s linkfest posts at Deep Sea News, I’ve designated this link-filled post with a bad pun on a scientific name.  We salty bloggers are classy like that.  Anyway, to make up for my lack of activity lately (it turns…

I am a Dogfish

Well, close enough.  One of my favorite evolutionary concepts is that we humans are but highly derived fish (check out Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish sometime to see just how deep and awesomely accurate that statement actually is), and now there is a neat little…

Meet the New Dogfish, Same as the Old Dogfish

Recently Will over at Bomai Cruz posed the question, “what determines a species?”  This is a relevant question for spiny dogfish research, since much of what is currently known about Squalus acanthias comes from work on the very well-studied north Pacific population.  However, dogfish in…

DarWIN, not DarLOSE!

I’ve always thought the comedic talents of both Dana Carvey and Charles Darwin were highly underrated. Dana Carvey is “DARWIN” – watch more funny videos