Mustelus californicus
The gray smooth-hound is a houndshark of the family Triakidae. It is spotless and smooth with a narrow head and long blunted snout. This shark is found on continental shelves of the subtropical eastern Pacific. Its range extends from northern California to the Gulf of California, usually residing in waters less than 80 meters deep. Adults are between 0.5 and 1.6 meters long. Furthermore, this shark is viviparous with an egg yolk placenta. Reproduction occurs annually and inland estuaries are common nursery grounds. Although there is little data on the shark's population trends and catch quantities, the gray smooth-hound is not considered as vulnerable to overfishing. Additionally, there have been three reported sightings of albinism in this species, which is rare for elasmobranchs.
Coughdrop12 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- gray smoothhoundPBDB
- Sits inside
- MustelusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Carcharhiniformes
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Mustelus californicus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene50%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Mustelus californicus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Mustelus californicus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Mustelus californicus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
73 taxa- Alopias vulpinus2 sites
- Atherinopsis californiensis2 sites
- Atractoscion nobilis2 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias2 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata2 sites
- Engraulis mordax2 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus2 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus2 sites
- Heterodontus francisci2 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus2 sites
- Myliobatis californica2 sites
- Paralichthys californicus2 sites
- Porichthys notatus2 sites
- Raja2 sites
- Rhacochilus vacca2 sites
- Rhinobatos productus2 sites
- Sebastes2 sites
- Sebastes diploproa2 sites
- Semicossyphus pulcher2 sites
- Seriphus politus2 sites
- Sphyraena argentea2 sites
- Squatina californica2 sites
- Triakis semifasciata2 sites
- Amphistichus argenteus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mustelus californicus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Preliminary List of the Marine Fishes and Other Vertebrate Remains from the Late Pleistocene Palos Verdes Sand Formation at Costa Mesa, Orange County, California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Chumash Midden at Rincon Point (SBa-1) Santa Barbara-Ventura counties, California1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Mustelus californicus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Coughdrop12
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Mustelus californicus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMustelus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gill 1864