Next time you're walking past your local fishmonger's window, have a closer look at what's on offer as it might just turn out to be a new species!
That's exactly what a group of fish taxonomists decided to do at a the Tashi Fish Market in North East Taiwan.
They were at the market to compare any noticeable differences in shark catches from previous decades. However, while inspecting the wealth of species available they noticed a basket of Squaliforme sharks, more commonly known as dogfish, that they didn't immediately recognise.
Fortunately for the scientists, both male and female specimens were available, so they quickly snapped up the 1m long sharks for further investigation.
Comparisons with other dogfish known from the deep-waters off Taiwan and Japan found it differed in several striking ways, not least the presence of notably larger spines in front of both dorsal fins.
After full taxonomic investigation it has been given the name Squalus formosus, with the later part of the name referring to the location it was discovered – Taiwan was once called 'Ilha Formosa' (meaning 'beautiful island' in Portuguese).
Recent research has found that what were once thought to be a few wide ranging Squalus species are actually many more similar looking but different species with far more restricted ranges, so the fact that the species was discovered on the market as the result of a deep trawl is of some concern.
Deep sea shark species typically have slow reproduction rates, so the impact of commercial fishing on them can be devastating, particularly when so little is known about them as proved by this discovery.
For more information, see the paper: White, W.T., & Iglesias, S.P. (2011). Squalus formosus, a new species of spurdog shark (Squaliformes: Squalidae), from the western North Pacific Ocean Journal of Fish Biology : doi:10.1111/j.1095-8649.2011.03068.x
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