Skeletal lesions and deformities in large sharks.

Abstract

Four blunt-snouted sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) were noted among 555 examined over a 13-yr period. Radiographs of one specimen revealed that the three rostral cartilage rods were abnormally short and failed to join at the anterior tip. The deformity appeared to be congenital. Four cases of vertebral lesions were noted in three species of shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus, Negaprion brevirostris and Odontaspis taurus). The vertebral columns had fused centra, ribs and neural arches, extra deposition and erosion of calcified material in the centra, and in one case, compression of centra. The causes of the vertebral lesions are unknown.