A new species of the deep‐water catshark genus apristurus from new zealand waters (chondrichthyes: Scyliorhinidae)

Abstract

A new deep water catshark species Apnstui us exsanguis, is described based on twenty‐nine specimens collected from the waters around New Zealand It has strong similarities with Apristurus sp B (Paulin et al, 1989) fiom New Zealand Apristurus sp A (Last and Stevens 1994) from Australia and Apristurus japonicus Nakaya, 1975, from Japan, but oan be separated from species ‘A and B by colouration, relative dorsal fin sizes and position, and spiral valve count, and from A japonicus by counts of spiral valves, tooth rows and monospondylus vertebrae. © 1999 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.