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Discovery of a normal hermaphroditic chondrichthyan species: Apristurus longicephalus |
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| Authors: | S P Iglésias† D Y Sellos K Nakaya‡ |
| Institution: | UMR 5178, Station de Biologie Marine, Département "Milieux et Peuplements aquatiques", Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, BP 225, 29182 Concarneau cedex, France and; Laboratory of Marine Biodiversity, Graduate School of Fisheries Sciences, Hokkaido University, 3‐1‐1, Minato‐cho, Hakodate, Hokkaido 041‐8611, Japan |
| Abstract: | Examination of the internal genital apparatus of Apristurus longicephalus , a small, deep‐water bottom‐dwelling catshark (Scyliorhinidae) from the western Pacific and Indian Oceans has revealed that it is a hermaphroditic species. It possesses both the developed genital apparatus of one sex and the undeveloped genital apparatus of the opposite sex in the same individual. Apristurus longicephalus is the first case of normal hermaphroditism to be recorded in cartilaginous fishes and this has been further classified as rudimentary hermaphroditism. |
| Keywords: | Apristurus longicephalus Chondrichthyes hermaphroditism New Caledonia reproduction Scyliorhinidae |