Occurrence report of the goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni Jordan, 1898 (Lamniformes: Mitsukurinidae), off northern Brazil

Abstract

The goblin shark,  Mitsukurina owstoni Jordan, 1898 is a species that inhabits deep water, rarely being seen alive.  It belongs to family Mitsukurinidae, reaches up to 4 meters long and it is found in zones down to 1,200 meters deep. For  the development of this research, the fisheries were carried out on the continental shelf and slope of Northern Brazil, with  trawlings made at depths between 236 and 1,246 meters. The sampling stations were distributed in this region between  latitudes 01º23’N and 05º09’N. The deep trawling operations were performed onboard fishing boats in the periods from  August, 2002 to May, 2003 and from June, 2003 to July, 2004, by employing five different types of fishing nets. Among  the species of cartilaginous fish, on five trawls on the Brazilian northern coast, six specimens of goblin shark were captured.  Among the material collected during the fishing trips and sent to an ichtyological museum, fourteen of them were  photographic records with their respective catching data and a specimen of goblin shark, the only one in South America.