Orectolobidae

Peter R. Last, Justin A. Chidlow & Leonard J. V. Compagno, 2006, A new wobbegong shark, Orectolobus hutchinsi n. sp. (Orectolobiformes: Orectolobidae) from southwestern Australia., Zootaxa 1239, pp. 35-48 : 35

[[ Family Orectolobidae Gill ]]

The wobbegongs (F. Orectolobidae ) are represented by three genera and seven species in the Indo -Pacific (Compagno et al., 2005). The group has not been subjected to a formal review and several taxonomic problems exist. At least six species are thought to occur in Australian seas (Last and Stevens, 1994): Eucrossorhinus dasypogon (Bleeker, 1867) , O. maculatus (Bonnaterre, 1788) , O. ornatus (de Vis, 1883) , O. wardi Whitley, 1939 , Sutorectus tentaculatus (Peters, 1864) and an un-named species, O. sp. A . All of theses species, apart from O. wardi and E. dasypogon , were thought to occur off southwestern Australia. More recent research suggests that other undescribed species occur off Western Australia (Last and Chidlow, unpublished data). The new species was informally described but not named by Last and Stevens (1994) and illustrated as a composite of multiple specimens from a variety of colour prints and slides. More recently, Chidlow (2003) completed a study of the biology of this species as part of a higher university degree. The new wobbegong is formally described below and aspects of its biology are discussed.