Centroscymnus coelolepis Barbosa du Bocage & de Brito Capello, 1864

Ebert, David A., Wintner, Sabine P. & Kyne, Peter M., 2021, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of South Africa, Zootaxa 4947 (1), pp. 1-127 : 31

Centroscymnus coelolepis Barbosa du Bocage & de Brito Capello, 1864

Portuguese Shark

Centroscymnus coelolepis Barbosa du Bocage & de Brito Capello, 1864: 263 , fig. 4. Holotype: Museu Bocage , Lisbon, MB T113 , destroyed in fire. Type locality: off Portugal, northeastern Atlantic.

Local synonymy:? Centroscymnus fuscus: Gilchrist & von Bonde, 1924: 2 (off St. Helena Bay, South Africa, SE Atlantic); Barnard, 1925: 51; Smith, 1949a: 58; Smith, 1965: 58. Centrophorus squamosus: Hulley, 1971: 267 , fig. 1; Bass et al., 1976: 28 (in part, for synonymy of C. fuscus with this species). Centroscymnus coelolepis: Compagno, 1984a: 55 , fig.; Compagno et al., 1989: 32, pl.; Compagno et al., 1991: 56; Ebert et al., 1992: 603; Compagno, 1999: 115; Compagno et al., 2005: 112, fig., pl. 10; Ebert, 2013: 90, fig. 127; Ebert et al., 2013 a: 151, fig., pl. 13; Ebert & Mostada, 2013: 35, fig.; Ebert, 2015: 87, fig. 104; Ebert & Mostada, 2015: 31, fig.; Ebert & van Hees, 2015: 144; White et al., 2015: 214; Weigmann et al., 2016b: 642; Compagno, 2016: 1189; Weigmann, 2016: 899.

South Africa voucher material: SAIAB 25727, SAIAB 26272, SAIAB 26273, SAIAB 26417, SAIAB 27601.

South Africa distribution: Common off the west coast from the Orange River (NC) to off Cape Agulhas (WC), but also extending to the EC. It has not been found off KZN, but likely occurs there since it has been caught off southern Mozambique and is common on the Walters Shoal ( Weigmann et al., 2016).

Remarks: Centroscymnus fuscus was described from a specimen taken off St. Helena Bay and was recognized as a valid species until Hulley (1971) and Bass et al. (1976) synonymized it with Centrophorus squamosus . However, details of the original description by Gilchrist and von Bonde (1924) suggest that C. fuscus may be a synonym of C. coelolepis rather than C. squamosus . Centroscymnus coelolepis is common in the area off St. Helena Bay where the type specimen was caught, while C. squamosus is relatively uncommon in that area. Unfortunately, C. fuscus was never illustrated and the holotype is lost.

Conservation status: NT (2020).