New England Shark Species
Within 50 miles of coastal New England--
angel - basking - blue - dusky -
mako - porbeagle - sandbar - sand tiger - smooth dogfish
- smooth hammerhead - sharpnose - spiny dogfish - thresher - tiger - white
Note: There are additional shark
species in the Canyons located south of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, but that area is
more than 50 miles offshore and those species will not be included in the above group.
|
 |
Introduction
To my fellow anglers, and others interested in sharks.
Most fishermen, whether they are fishing for smelt, tuna, eels, marlin, stripers, sharks
etc. usually have only two questions. 1. Where do I go to catch them? 2. What do I
use for equipment?
Well, I think it's about time you learned something about the shark species themselves
for a change.
That's what this shark website is about. Please read
it and don't just look at pictures.
This website includes information on the shark species you may encounter on a day trip
offshore from any New England port.
Many of the shark species
found in New England are also found worldwide. This site should be
of interest to everyone interested in sharks. - Tom
If you have comments, questions,
suggestions, or interesting shark information, or photos; please e-mail me at
capt.tom@comcast.net |
A
Crash Course on sharks in General.
Life was much simpler in 1758, when the Swedish botanist Carl von
Linne (Linnaeus) popularized the binomial classification system of assigning two words to describe a species. Usually
Greek or Latin or combinations of both. There were about a dozen shark species
known in 1758.
There was an incredible lack of knowledge about shark species until the
1940s, when the navies and air forces of the world got interested in
sharks and had to deal with sharks and survivors at sea during World War
II. . The 1975 movie "Jaws " spurred the public's interest
in sharks; especially the white shark, Carcharodon carcharias.
An updated 2005 shark taxonomy list, has established 34 families,
and 453 species of sharks worldwide. That's an increase from the previous 28
families and 370 species categorized in 1984.
Since 2005 several more species have been discovered.
The good news is that in most areas of the world you only have to
be knowledgeable about a dozen or so shark species.
In the United States, on the East coast and Gulf of Mexico from Maine to
Texas there are about 33 species of sharks. There are about 15 shark species in the New England area,
and only a half dozen species that you are likely to encounter. So with a
little effort and interest, you can learn about those species, and how to identify the sharks that ply the coastal
New England waters. |
To assist you in navigating the website; All the web pages on this site are listed below.
They will also be listed again at the bottom of each individual
webpage.
A picture may be worth a thousand words but
it isn't worth anything if you don't know
what your looking at. SO, read, read, read!
Don't get distracted by the interspersed pictures.
If you are just going to jump around looking
for pictures of sharks, you won't learn much about sharks. You will get the
most out of this website if you read it in page order.
Follow the Next at
the bottom of each page. That way you will gain a page by page background in sharks
to help you understand the remaining pages. This site has over 20
pages. |
| Next: What is a shark ??
Also how to distinguish male and female sharks. Basic info. you should
know. |
|
Updated March 20, 2008 -
Scituate, Massachusetts