- kingdomAnimalia
- ›phylumChordata
- ›classElasmobranchii
- ›orderLamniformes
- ›familyMegachasmidae
- ›genusMegachasma
Megamouth shark
Megachasma pelagios Taylor, Compagno & Struhsaker, 1983
Also calledDev ağızlı köpekbalığı (tur) · Hiu bermulut besar (ind) · Jättemunhaj (swe) · Kæmpemund (dan) · Megamausuzame (jpn) · Rekin wielkogębowy (pol) · Requin grande guele (fra) · Requin grande-gueule (fra) · Reuzenbekhaai (nld) · Riesenmaulhai (deu) · Squalo bocca grande (ita) · Suurisuuhai (fin) · Tiburón bocudo (spa) · Tubarão-boca-grande (por)
First described in: Taylor, Leighton R., Jr., Leonard J. V. Compagno & Paul J. Struhsaker. 1983. Megamouth — a new species, genus, and family of lamnoid shark (Megachasma pelagios, family Megachasmidae) from the Hawaiian Islands. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, 4 43(8): 87-110.
Descriptions from checklists and floras indexed by GBIF
description
Megamouth Shark. To 7.1 m (23.3 ft) TL (Watanabe and Papastamatiou 2019). Circumglobal; western Pacific Ocean north to northern Japan (Ebert et al. 2013); Hawai’i (Ebert et al. 2013); southern California (Compagno et al. in Fischer et al. 1995); off Punta Eugenia, Baja California (Castillo-Géniz et al. 2012); Peru (Kelez et al. 2020). Depth: 8 – 1,000 m (26 – 3,280 ft) (min.: Ebert et al. 2013; max.: Weigmann 2016), and as shallow as 5 m (16 ft) in benthic, coastal waters (Ebert et al. 2013).
Checklist of marine and estuarine fishes from the Alaska-Yukon Border, Beaufort Sea, to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
discussion
Remarks: The South African record is the western most record in the Indian Ocean. Conservation status: LC (2019).
An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of South Africa
materials_examined
South Africa voucher material: SAM 36030. South African distribution: Known from a single specimen that washed ashore at Nature’s Valley near Plettenberg Bay (EC).
An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of South Africa
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Megachasma pelagios in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
From the GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and occurrence records (GBIF.org), with Wikipedia and the Source Library. GBIF species 2420718.