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Hemipristis

Poole, Karen E.

EntityQ887864· pop 9· linked from 51 articles

Hemipristis

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Hemipristis (from , 'half' and 'saw') is a genus of weasel sharks, family Hemigaleidae. It contains one extant species, the snaggletooth shark (H. elongata) and several extinct species.

Species

KINGDOM

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassElasmobranchii
  4. OrderCarcharhiniformes
  5. FamilyHemigaleidae
Habitatmarine

via GBIF

Museum specimens

Specimen records
617
With media
19
Family
Hemigaleidae
Collections
USNM, SDNHM, UCMP
Recorded in
United States, Mexico

~1 min read

Encyclopedic overview

3 sections
Contents
  • Species
  • See also
  • References

Hemipristis (from , 'half' and 'saw') is a genus of weasel sharks, family Hemigaleidae. It contains one extant species, the snaggletooth shark (H. elongata) and several extinct species.

Hemipristis has two distinct types of teeth in each section of its jaw. The ones on the upper jaw act as knives, cutting through the flesh of the prey, while the pointed ones on the bottom act as forks, spearing the prey and holding it down. Because this shark was poorly studied in the past and its top and bottom jaw teeth differ to such a great degree, its top and lower jaw teeth were assigned to a separate genus in the past.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Hemipristis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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