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River shark

River sharks are poorly known, sympatric with bull sharks.

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River shark

Bill Harrison from Wellington, New Zealand · via Wikipedia: River shark · CC BY 2.0

People thought these sharks were extinct until small populations turned up in Borneo and Northern Australia near the end of the 20th century.[1] People have spotted river sharks in places like South Asia, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Australia, though their exact range is uncertain.[2]

Scientific classification

  1. KingdomAnimalia
  2. PhylumChordata
  3. ClassChondrichthyes
  4. SubclassElasmobranchii
  5. DivisionSelachii
  6. OrderCarcharhiniformes
  7. FamilyCarcharhinidae
  8. GenusGlyphis

Named by Agassiz, 1843

Sources: Wikipedia taxobox: River shark (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Quick Facts

Type species
Carcharias (Prionodon) glyphis

Facts from the source article.

Taxonomy and phylogeny

The Glyphis group has three recognized species: the Ganges shark, the northern river shark, and the speartooth shark.[3] Agassiz named the Glyphis group in 1843.[4] The only known prehistoric Glyphis is Glyphis pagoda, from the middle and late Miocene of Myanmar.[5] It's possible there are more Glyphis species than we currently recognize, but studying them is tough because these sharks are so secretive.[6]

DNA studies show the Ganges shark (Glyphis gangeticus) pops up in scattered spots across the Indo-West Pacific, and the Bornean and Irrawaddy River sharks are just variations of it.[6] Some experts still treat those as separate species.[6] Fossil teeth from an unknown Glyphis—maybe from the modern speartooth shark or northern river shark—turned up in Late Miocene rocks in Brunei.[5]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "River shark" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Li, "DNA capture reveals transoceanic gene flow in endangered river sharks", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015, p. 13302–13307 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "River shark" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: White WT, "Rediscovery of the Threatened River Sharks, Glyphis garricki and G. glyphis, in Papua New Guinea", PLoS ONE, October 7, 2015 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "River shark" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bailly, Nicolas, "Glyphis Agassiz, 1843", 2014 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. World Register of Marine Species, Glyphis (AphiaID 296698). CC BY 4.0. marinespecies.org
  5. Wikipedia, "River shark" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Glyphis Agassiz 1843 (river shark)", Fossilworks; Boeseman, "A tragedy of errors: the status of Carcharhinus blainville, 1816: Galeolamna owen, 1853; Eulamia gill, 1861; and the identity of Carcharhinus commersonii Blainville, 1825", Zoologische Mededelingen, 1960-01-01; "Extinct - valid species Species Shark-References", shark-references.com; Shimada, "The extinct river shark Glyphis pagoda from the Miocene of Myanmar and a review of the fossil record of the genus Glyphis (Carcharhiniformes: Carcharhinidae)", Zootaxa, 2016-09-05, p. 237–2 en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "River shark" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Li, "DNA capture reveals transoceanic gene flow in endangered river sharks", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015, p. 13302–13307; Jabado, "A rare contemporary record of the Critically Endangered Ganges shark Glyphis gangeticus", Journal of Fish Biology, 2018, p. 1663–1669; Li, "DNA capture reveals transoceanic gene flow in endangered river sharks", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2015, p. 13302–13307; Bailly, Nicolas, "Glyphis Agassiz, 1843", 2014 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article River shark (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Named in this entry

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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