Eusphyra Gill, 1862

Ebert, David A., White, William T., Ho, Hsuan-Ching, Last, Peter R., Nakaya, Kazuhiro, Séret, Bernard, Straube, Nicolas, Naylor, Gavin J. P. & De Carvalho, Marcelo R., 2013, An annotated checklist of the chondrichthyans of Taiwan, Zootaxa 3752 (1), pp. 279-386 : 339

?Genus Eusphyra Gill, 1862

Winghead Shark / ŔṚẨắé

Eusphyra Gill, 1862: 403 . Type species: Zygaena blochii Cuvier, 1816 , by original designation (and by monotypy).

? Eusphyra blochii ( Cuvier, 1816)

Winghead Shark / Ůkẚḝěḛ

Zygaena blochii Cuvier, 1816: 127 . Holotype: ZMB 7835 (stuffed), female 525 mm TL, no type locality ( Fowler, 1941 thought type was from India).

Local synonymy: None.

Taiwan voucher material: No specimens with confirmed locality examined in this study.

Remarks: A coastal dwelling species common in some parts of its range; highly susceptible to coastal fisheries due to its very broad, wing-like head; possibly largely extirpated from heavily fished areas such as Indonesia and possibly southern China. No specific records of this species in Taiwan and not reported in local checklists and faunal guides; Compagno (1984), Compagno et al. (2005) and Last & Stevens (2009) include Taiwan in the known distribution of this species; since it is a very distinctive shark, misidentifications are unlikely. A specimen of this species at the Taiwan Fisheries Research Institute in Keelung ( FRIP 03626) has no locality data and there is a possibility it came from another country, e.g. northern Australia where a number of other specimens in the same collection were collected.

Conservation status: Near Threatened.