a bottom-dwelling shark in the dogfish shark family, Squalidae. The dogfish sharks belong to the order Squaliformes, which also includes the bramble and rough sharks. The scientific name of the little sleeper shark is Somniosus rostratus. The body of the little sleeper shark is gray to black. The head is short, with a broad, rounded snout. The bladelike lower teeth have a single cusp, or point, that slants to the side. The upper teeth are smaller but also have a single cusp, which is shaped somewhat like a lance. Flat, wide dermal denticles, or teethlike structures, with horizontal cusps cover the sides of the body. This species has two dorsal, or top, fins of roughly the same size but no anal fin. Neither of the dorsal fins has the rigid frontal spine found in some other sharks. A short ridge of hard tissue called a keel is located on the base of the tail fin. The little sleeper shark can reach a maximum length of about 4.5 feet (1.4 meters), but adult males average 2.3 feet (70 centimeters), and females between 2.7 and 4.4 feet (82 and 134 centimeters), in length. Females give birth to live young that measure between 8 and 11 inches (20 and 28 centimeters) long. The diet presumably includes deepwater, bottom-dwelling fishes and invertebrates. Little sleeper sharks are found in the western Mediterranean Sea, in the eastern North Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Madeira and France, and in the western Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan. They live on or near bottom at depths between 650 and 3,280 feet (200 and 1,000 meters. Their importance in commercial fishing is minimal. (See also Dogfish sharks.) |