Carcharhinidae

Moore, Alec B. M., Ward, Robert D. & Peirce, Richard, 2012, Sharks of the Persian (Arabian) Gulf: a first annotated checklist (Chondrichthyes: Elasmobranchii), Zootaxa 3167, pp. 1-16 : 12-13

Carcharhinidae (Whaler or requiem sharks)

The silvertip shark Carcharhinus albimarginatus ( Rüppell, 1837) was recorded by Goubanov & Shleib (1980; subsequently noted in Bishop, 2003) as seldom encountered in the southern Gulf although they did not present evidence; Randall (1996) considered this record doubtful. This species is generally associated with shelf waters, offshore islands, reefs, and banks, and near drop-offs, with the nearest confirmed records from the Red Sea and the Maldives ( Compagno et al. 2005); it was not recorded in Omani surveys ( Henderson et al. 2007; Henderson & Reeve, 2011); it is considered unlikely to be present in the Gulf.

A single specimen of a shark morphologically similar to, but clearly distinct from, C. dussumieri , was photographed by the lead author in Kuwait in April 2008 but not retained. Whole specimens are needed to resolve the identity of this species (W. White, CSIRO Marine Research, pers. comm.).

The silky shark Carcharhinus falciformis (Müller & Henle, 1839) is abundant in Omani waters ( Henderson et al. 2007) and considered to be possibly present in the Gulf ( Compagno et al. 2005), although no records are known to the current authors; this species may be more likely to occur in the deeper waters of the northeastern Gulf.

Isolated records of the spadenose shark Scoliodon laticaudus ( Müller & Henle, 1838) from fish community studies in Kuwait Bay ( Wright et al. 1990, as S. laticaudatus ; Wright et al. 1996) require confirmation.

The circumglobal sandbar shark Carcharhinus plumbeus ( Nardo, 1827) has been reported (e.g. Goubanov & Shleib, 1980; Herdson 1981; Krupp & Almarri 1996) and photographs of a specimen seen by the authors are more than likely to have originated from the Gulf, although unequivocal evidence is required.

Compagno (1984b) raised the possibility that the critically endangered Ganges shark Glyphis gangeticus (Müller & Henle, 1839) may occur in the Gulf, and although this author did not pursue the idea (e.g. Compagno 1984a; Compagno et al. 2005) it was considered to be plausible given environmental changes over recent geological history (Moore 2011). Mahdi (1962) noted two separate species of freshwater shark occurring in the Tigris River as far upstream as Baghdad, although these may simply represent misidentification of C. leucas . Nonetheless the undersampled (and highly threatened) Tigris-Euphrates-Karun system remains intriguing.

Randall (1996) noted that the whitetip reef shark Triaenodon obesus ( Rüppell, 1837) has not been recorded from the Gulf and our data support this.